Building Freedom Into Your Business with Airtable with Elisabeth Jackson

Welcome to the Creative Mind Smart Money Podcast where we turn financial confusion into creative confidence. I'm Samantha Eck, the keeper and fractional CFO for creative entrepreneurs. Each week I'm sharing my financial expertise and actionable strategies to help you build a thriving creative business. Plus you'll hear from industry experts who bring fresh perspectives on growing your business beyond the numbers. Because building a successful creative business starts with strong financial foundations. Your next chapter starts now. You're listening to the Creative Mind's Smart Money Podcast and today I am so excited to have guests Elizabeth with me. Elizabeth is the go-to expert for helping agencies and service providers increase profit without increasing stress. An operation specialist for over eight years and founder of her own process improvement agency Elizabeth specializes in building systems that let your business run smoothly even when you step away. Get ready to learn how to build freedom into your business not just chase it. How are you today Elizabeth? I am doing well like it's 5 a.m. here so like we're actually I'm right awake we're doing pretty okay my baby is sleeping it's a good day. She has some good to hear. I feel like sometimes when you wake up at 5 a.m. you just have that like jolt of energy and you're like let's go. Actually I was not much of a morning person and then I had my first child I'm very much a morning person now. The only time I get to myself. That makes sense that makes sense so let's start with the basics. Who are you what do you do and what first drew you to tools like air table which is what we're talking about today. Yeah so you you really condense it in that description of who I am of just what really drew me to air table was I am into process improvement I have been an op specialist for the last eight years I come from an agency background so it's very scrappy very fast that is kind of the world that I delved into when I first got into the operation space and then kind of flourished out on my own so I am a data girl I really really like to know my data I like to know my numbers I like to know what's going on so that I am able to make the best decisions moving forward when it comes to my business and my clients and that's what really made me love air table I love air table so much because it's essentially a Google sheet on steroids it's a database that I'm able to splice my data anyway that I want get as much information out of my data pull as much meat as I can out of the data that I get and it really allows me to get really really intentional when it comes to things in my business so backing up with my agency what we do as you said is my whole thing is about plugging what I call profit leaks so these would be your operational bottlenecks your gaps those things that you're like oh it's only going to take me five minutes but it really takes you like three business days to do like those are the things that I am looking for I'm smoothing over I'm making easier simpler and clearer for you and your team to be able to do and so for me to be able to do that I need to know the data of my clients so again circling back I love being able to implement air table not just for me but for my clients because they need to know that data too so that's really what drew me to tools like this is I wanted to make sure that there was a simple easy way for clients to also be able to see what was going on in their business so that they could also feel empowered to make business decisions as well especially after I've gone in and I've done all this process improvement in systemization. Yes yeah I love that and I think that we connected quite a while back because someone had referred like told me about your program that you had coming on a table that you're gonna love what she is coming out in their shape when I was falling along and I still love it so that's so exciting for folks who've never heard of air table and really aren't sure what it is how would you explain it in like plain terms which I know you kind of did with Google sheets on steroids but I guess a little bit more on that I love a good metaphor I've got them for days so we can we can figure this out so if I always think of systems I'll back up with just systems in general I always think of systems as the foundations of a house like you wouldn't start building a house without the foundations right you wouldn't start building anything unless you have the schematics you have a blueprint that's your data and if we were to think of air table as your blueprint to just understanding what's going on what it is you want to do what it is you want to look out for how you go about looking at each detail before you start building some there even as you're building something referring back to it and making sure okay are we following according to plan does this make sense with what we have on the plans that would be air table is a great way for you to be able to track client sales tasks content whatever it is that you would like to track and you'd like to look at your numbers for and it allows you and this is the best part because I think people think like was if it's just Google sheets but just like more power for like why wouldn't I just use Google sheets air table allows you to link data so it is a relational database which allows you to be able to take something from one table and connect it intentionally to another piece of data so an example I always like to use is with my client tracker so I have a client help tracker inside of air table I can connect all of my clients to any of my services which live in another table to how many hours a we have we have used for a retainer when that's in another table and I'm able to connect all of that to my client table so I can get all this information about my clients by linking data from different pieces that I'm connect that I'm already tracking and put it into one central place that makes it so much easier if you're somebody who like me before air table I like to just put my data down wherever I whatever I have an arms reach so I'll write it down in a notepad I'll voice it in order and then just wait for it to show up in a sauna I'll talk about an sauna I'll talk about an in a meeting with my team data's everywhere right so when you're able to put that all into air table and then you're able to link it so you can see oh all of this stuff that seems so scattered actually is linked to this one thing game changer so that is air table in a nutshell yes now I know you just started to touch on this but why do you think it's so important for creative service based businesses just businesses in general to track their data in one central spot that that's it right there is that we as business owners just because we have so much going on in our brains especially creative business owners like we're thinking of things in my limit like I could be in the shower and be like this is the most amazing idea possible and I will just jot it down in my notes and then completely forget about it when we're able to put something centrally in one location not only for us to be able to look back on later but then also be able to execute on it because the data is there to be able to give us more power to actually make a decision on something that will help you feel so much more focused and so much more dynamic in the way that you make decisions because I think for a lot of creative entrepreneurs and I work with a lot of creative agency so I work with a lot of creative people what makes air table so powerful is that creative minds are some of the most powerful minds that we have just in general as humans when we can focus that and then back date put data behind that of like this is not only a great idea but we now have some data to back that up you will be able to do so much more with your business and I'm trying to think of a really good example of what air tables allow me to do like essentially it helps you see patterns as well something that I've been able to use it for like a kind of a off the beaten path type use case but I use it for my proposals because I track all my past proposals that I do for more unique system builds things that don't fit in my standard packages I can look back on that and be like okay this is for this type of project this is what I quoted last time did we go over budget or under budget like how much did that eat into profit I can look at all of that in air table in one place and then be able to go okay so when I'm wanting to create this proposal and wanting to add all this cool stuff and everything I can look back at my date and be like okay wait am I pricing this appropriately am I making sure my team is paid my make sure I'm paid like are we are we good across the board yes then I can send it as opposed to just guessing yeah and to start getting myself in a cycle of constantly not paying myself constantly I'm putting enough profit in the business constantly not getting my team paid constantly underscoping that is just one example of being able to have that data to back a really good idea so that you're able to actually be more impactful in your business yes absolutely so that's a good example of one of things but what other kind of business decisions get easier when you've got clear centralized data to work from so many so many I have a quote generator and that has helped me with my pricing so much I did not think that air table initially when I got it initially when I got it was for something like content tracking I just wanted to keep track of all my content ideas right and that's how I saw other people using it until I got really into building within now I use it for pricing like with that proposal generator that I just mentioned it's also connected to a quote calculator of just like okay this are my profit margins this is how much I pay my team but these are the general hours and the hourly rate of my team right I can now make sure anytime I'm quoting anytime I'm reflecting on my packages my standard packages I can make sure the pricing is right because I can always double check my data and be like is this actually in line with what I need to be pricing is it under is it over like right too much like is it in line with what? Make sense? in terms of inflation and everything, that's a whole separate conversation. But I can track that inside of air table. Capacity. Capacity makes it so much easier with air table because the way you are able, you can't hide from data, data doesn't lie. And so when you think or you feel like, "Oh, this is, this is so much time I'm spending on something, this is so much time my team is spending on something." And then you look at it and air table and you're like, "Oh, we are over-resourced." So now we have to make some decisions, do I like re-delegate? Do I need to look at my processes? Because I'm like dang, like if we're constantly going over hours, where's the leak? And now I can start making more decisions more intentionally of where to look. Do I need to raise my prices? Because I'm now taking too many people in and it's over-resourced my team, I can now look at pricing. It allows you to just look at the data in a meaningful way to be able to know, okay, this is the linchpin in something. I can now investigate to see what I need to do to fix that. You're able to do that a lot better with data. I'm glossing over, like probably one of the biggest ones, sales data. You can put all your sales in there. You can look at, okay, what is the most profitable thing that I have? What is the thing that's selling the most? And is the most profitable thing? Because those two things may not be the same thing. Being able to track my sales and how often I get those sales, how many repeat clients that I get, I can look at all of that from one interface and air table and make a decision on, okay, what am I promoting this quarter? Whenever I'm promoting this month. And then check that capacity tracker and be like, okay, what am I team have capacity for? Cool, that's what I'm focusing on. You can make launch decisions faster. You can make those quick little flash deals that you want to do when you're like, I just want to put something out there. You can actually make a really good strategic decision around that when it comes to tax time. Well, I don't, I am not about promoting air table as a way to be able to do your taxes or anything. That just makes sure we have that disclaimer in there. But it's a great way to be able to track, okay, just in general, what does revenue versus expenses look like? It just allows you to make better financial, better launch, better sales, and better client decisions in your business. Yes. Absolutely. So you've given us a few examples of processes that air table can support, like content planning, client management launches. Can you think of any more other specific examples? I love using it as a customer service hub. So I have turned an air table base into a ticketing hub. So what I do with my clients is after they finish to build with me, depending on the package, they get 30 to 90 days of support afterwards because as anyone knows, after you've installed a system, doesn't mean you instantly start using it. There's going to be some trouble choosing. There's going to be some, you know, figuring our way around. And so I like to make myself and my team available when you're trying to figure it out to make sure we actually adopt the system that we've put in. We use air table for that. So they fill out a form and the way we have it set up is every time they fill out the form with their request, it goes into our air table. But then here's the fun part. Air table is so easy to automate. It's so easy to automate. So we have had it automated to push to our project management software, Asana. So anytime a new request comes in, goes through air table and air table pushes it to Asana and assigns it to the appropriate person based on the client. Because in our clients table, it says which team member is in charge of that client. So it pushes to that team member, I don't have to see it. If I'm not in charge of it, I don't have to see it, which is so great, because I already have enough on my plate. I don't need to see every single request that comes in from every client. It's, and then it has an automatic due date, which is already tracked inside of an air table. It allows us to be able to then, I've dynamically, this is an advanced case. You do not need to do this as this is your first time in the air table. We've been able to dynamically create auto-populated forms in air table. So anytime a client populates the form, then it pushes to us. We can respond, but we respond in air table through a form that's already been pre-filled and we just answer whatever we see the question is. Then automatically, once we fill that out, automatically pushes an email to the client with the answer to their question. So we do all of that in air table. Literally all we have to do as an agency is we look up the form based on the Asana task. We answer it, we click send, air table, take care, air table, and Zapier specifically. It takes care of everything else. So I love it to be able to keep my inbox clean because I'm not in my email inbox nearly as much as I should be given the amount of emails that I get. I just, I don't have time. So if there's a lot of questions in that inbox and I don't see them, then all of a sudden, my clients aren't getting answers for like three, four days. It's much easier when it automatically is inside of Asana. It has a due date. It's to the right person. They get their answers within 24 to 48 hours. It's exactly what they need. So that is probably my favorite use case for air table. And air table is compared to customer service softwares out there like ZenDesk. Way more budget friendly, more bespoke for what you need. And easily implementable. Like that's probably my favorite use case. I like tracking client feedback as well because feedback loops, especially in creative agencies. That's a lot. It can be a lot, especially if you're dealing with a lot of clients. And you've gone through like two, three rounds of feedback. You have 12 clients and you're trying to remember, okay, which requests, which feedback is where? I use air table to be able to track, okay, for each thing that we're doing, where we are in the feedback process. We do our feedback forms through air table and we're able to track how many feedback loops we've gone through because we have a policy of no more than two. So once we've gone past the second feedback, it gives us a little alert and the air table of like, we've exhausted our feedback loops. So we can look at our clients and go, okay, this is where we're at. If there's any more changes, we can go, hey, any more changes beyond this point is actually going to be, has to be minimal acceptance so forth, we say the policy. And we're able to then look at if there's been feedback, our notes from feedback from the client is tracked inside of a sauna as well. So that when our team goes to implement, they can look at the feedback based on the client. It's just, it makes things so much more organized. It's so much easier than going back and forth in an email thread and then you're trying to figure out, okay, what are we doing? When, how, who's doing what? It just makes it so much easier organized and you're able to move faster. That's probably the biggest thing to your previous question. Air table allows you to execute faster and speed is everything in business when you can do it intentionally and Air table allows you to do that. - Yes, and I love that. I love that you're mentioning that it is pairing like with your project management system because I think so many of us in the creative space, in the business space, they get there is a software that they one size fits all. It's just gonna do everything and there's just, there's not, there's certain software that are great for certain use cases, but then you need something else to supplement. It's just supplemented. It's just there's never gonna be that one size fits all software and they're always gonna try and compete with each other but they're never gonna be quite as good at one thing as the other is 100%. And I'm always siding when a software's like, we are everything you need. And I'm like, are you? Because almost always when a software, a software's trying to be everything, it means it's not good at a lot of things. Like it's overcompensating a monarea which means that other areas had to be just short-change. That's just the nature of it. If nothing is going to be good at every single thing, that's why it's so much better. And I'm telling this to my clients constantly, like you hit the nail on the head. I would much rather make you a very tight tech stack of like three, four tools max. That does everything you need. Then us trying to make a one size fits all tool that subpar in six of the things that you really need and really good at four things that you're not gonna need at the stage in your business. Try and make that work. I'm like, it's just not gonna happen. And like speaking to what you were saying about air table, air table is amazing. At so many things, I will never use it as a project management tool. That's not what it was built for. That's not what it was made for. You could make it work if you really wanted to, but it's gonna get really expensive and really confusing just with how air table was built because it wasn't made that way. Like it's notification systems the way that it is connected was it made for you to be able to manage projects there. You really have to customize it to make it work that way when you really can just get a free plan of Asana and then just keep a push in and just connect it to air table or click up whatever you decide to use. I would much rather do that than try and make air table into what it's not because we want a one size fits all to. Tool, we can just make everything connect and talk to each other to make it feel like it's a one size fits all to it. It's just your tech to that stack really doing its job. - Yeah, exactly, exactly. Because I feel like that's gonna be a lot less stress than trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. - Exactly. I'm like, let's just a square peg, a square peg. Let's stop trying to jam it in there. Let's just find the hole to fit. So. - Exactly, exactly. And especially with us having so many things to do, like we don't have enough time in the day to try and like play with all these different softwares. - Exactly. - Or what I always say is like shiny penny syndrome and jump from software to software. Just get one thing, make it work and really like develop it well enough that your systems are well managed, you know? - Yes. - So you answered one of my questions already, which is what is the most underrated use case for air table in a small or growing business? Which I mean, for me personally, I think one of the most underrated use cases is definitely that whole sales thing, like combining all your sales data, especially if you're someone who has like several different streams, like maybe a stripe and square and things like that. Just getting everything in one place will just make it easier. But do you think there's anything else that's kind of underrated? I don't know if it's underrated. It might be one of those things again, that's kind of like ballpark. If you need it, it's underrated. If you don't, you're just going to be like, this is excess Elizabeth. And that's fine. But I, one of the underrated ways to use air table is not just as a way to like organize your data and splice it, etc. You can also literally use it, like going back to that analogy of air table kind of acting as a blueprint to the foundation of your house. It can also be the foundation for a lot of automations and apps. I have used air table to make different apps for myself. I have a no login client portal where air table is my database. That's where all the information is actively moving. It's fluid. It's constantly in action. There's not really a lot of holding and organizing to be able to look at later. That database is specifically used to connect to a front facing app to be able to just make sure information is going where it needs to go. So the way it works is similar to how we said before, front facing client portal, they can put their feedback requests in there. So we send them their video showcasing how a system has been done. As an example, we fill out a form. It goes into air table. Through an automation, air table pushes it into their client portal. Client can go to the client portal. They can see it. They get an email. All that automation happens. They fill out a form to let us know what they think, what they think needs to be changed, etc. When they fill out that form, it pushes back into air table, pushes into our assana, let's us know that feedback has been sent. It's just constantly a traffic controller. And it's so brilliant because with the client portal, our client doesn't have to go into email and have to be like, hey, what's going on? Where are you at with these tasks? They are able to see all the high level tasks inside of our assana that are client facing because we have a lot of internal stuff they really don't need to see, but all the client facing stuff of like, did we finish the preliminary design? Have we finished the process map? All of that stuff. As long as we update the status, it'll update inside of their client portal. Because of air table, air table is taking that information and pushing it into the portal. One of my favorite, but underrated cases ever because I used a Psollo and I love them to bits. Hate their client portal. And I've tried a whole bunch of different ones, but I was like, I don't want another login because I hate trend running through my passwords and logins. And at the same time, I think this is actually where we might have connected. I did a whole thread on threads talking about how I also don't like putting my clients inside of my project management tool. I'm like, that's kind of like my home, like like, little business home. And like, there's a lot of stuff going on. I really don't want my clients to come into my hell. Which really gives them their own speeds. But I don't want them to have to remember a password too, which is why this whole portal came into play. So they don't have to log in. It's their own custom unique link, which is from air table, custom created. So they can see only their information. It's dynamically created. They can see their task. Where everything is at. And it's just been, it's been amazing. Honestly, I don't have to, I don't have to have have questions where they're asking me where something's at because they already know to look in the portal and see it. They don't need to ask, how do we get in contact with you with your Q&A hotline? The link is in there. It's perfectly crafted so that air table is the workhorse. We could to stay in our house and be able to take care of everything that we normally would. We don't have to leave it. And the client still gets updated. So that might be the most underrated case is using air table as a workhorse, not just as a database, but as a working to back something like an app. And like, air table makes it so easy to make apps as well. They have a whole entire thing. They have a whole AI thing now where you can actually just dynamically make the apps. It'll help make it for you. It's, it sounds more complicated than it is. But when you, when you get that set, it's, it's so powerful. It's so powerful. I love that. And yeah, yeah, that's definitely one. I think the reason we connected is because I was trying to see if I could utilize air table for like a client portal where I could like send my proposals and things like that. And I remember some of being like, oh, you're going to love Elizabeth. They're like, you should definitely check out what she's building. And I think it's just so cool, but you can do all of that within air table and still have like, you know, you have your project management system, you have air table over here and you can combine them and make something really pretty without having to have all of these different extra systems that aren't necessarily like useful in your segue use case. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So when we're talking about setting up, what's your favorite way to start building a new base? And do you have any like go to templates or hacks? I think my favorite way to start is I always go with what's this is going to sound so boring. What's the goal? Like what's the workflow that we're actually trying to track here? Because I think with air table anybody who's even like looked into air table, whether you use it currently or your beginner and you're listening to this and you're looking at it while listening to us talk, air table is a sandbox. You can really make it anything that you want it to. And because of that, I think of it almost like, you know, back in school, when you'd have those essays of right, whatever you want to talk about and you're like, cool until you actually go to do it and you're like, what are I right? I don't know. I feel like that's the same thing with air table of like, oh my gosh, I have I can do anything I want. I can do anything I want. What do I, what do I do? And so it can feel a little overwhelming when it's a blank slate. So I like to start with what is the information that I want to track? Like if I if I want to track client information, okay, cool. I need to know their name. I need to know their email. What information do I need to know about this client that I personally feel is going to be beneficial for me to track? And with this as I'm mapping this out, I try to map it out before I put it into air table because I find I kind of bloat my air table tables if I'm just trying to like do it on the fly. So I like to just scrap out like, okay, where do I want? How do I want this to look? What do I want to organize? And then also what do I want this to connect to? This will probably be my first tip. Don't dump everything into one table. There's an architecture with air table. We have your base, which is kind of like your your Google sheet workbook if we're keeping it connected to exiling Google sheets. You have your tables, which is each of your sheets. And then you know, you have your columns and your rows columns are your fields. And then your rows are your records. So it can be really easy to think I'm just going to put everything in one table. I don't need multiple table. That is that is grossly underestimating and under utilizing air table and can make your air table very messy. And then you won't want to go in there because you're like this is too disorganized. I'm not seeing the organization. The key to the organization is the relationships, the relationships between the tables. So if I have like I was saying before, I want to track my sales data, but I also want to track my client data as well. I'm not going to put client in sales data in the same table. I'm going to keep those separate. Yeah. Because then I can just connect them. I can it's a relational database. So I can connect any sale to any client record and make sure that they're dynamically impacting each other. So then when I want to look at my sales data, it's not co-mingled with client email and name and all this other stuff. That's just not. I don't need that. But if I want to look at my client data and be like, what's the last sale I had? It's connected to the sales table. So I can see, okay, I can see my last sale was X state. So make sure when you're mapping things out and you're looking at, okay, this is the workflow that I want to look at. I want to look at sales data and I want to track my clients like where my clients are doing. We then want that information to be separated. If you know that the data for what you want to track relates to one another, but it's not within the same tree. It's not within the same umbrella. More than likely, it's going to be two separate tables that you just link together. So that's probably number one tip. Don't inflate or bloat your air table tables. Try and keep them separate and just link, link, link, link, link, link. That's probably going to be the easiest way for you to be able to organize things in there. If I'm creating a new base, I start with something really simple. Don't try and jump into formulas or anything like that. Like keep a simple sis. I try and stick with my, I'm a hardcore single select girl myself. I like to be able to have my little drop. Do you want? Yeah. And oh, this is probably my favorite one. If you know that the data that you want to look at is within one table, but you want to look at it a different way. Maybe if we're looking at, for example, when I have my tickets, when I want to look at, okay, my clients are sending in tickets, et cetera, I'm not going to make a new table of like, well, I only want to look at this, but I only want to look at those that have been sent within the last five days. I don't want to look at all of them. Don't make a separate table. Make a different view. So unlike Google Sheets, where you'd have to make a different sheet and you'd have to then do all the filtering and then like push it over, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can make in one table, you can make different views, which allows you to have saved instances of how you would filter your data. So just make a view specifically for what you want to look at. So you have your table that has everything in it. And then you can make another view of I only want to see those with a start date from the last five days. Keep all of the data that is the same, but just spliced in different ways in the same table. So I feel like, yeah, I was like three to four hacks. We'll start, well, and there I have a lot, but those are probably my favorite ones. And that's a great place to start. Know your workflow. trying and keep data that is relational, but not the same in separate tables and then just link. But if it is the same data, you just wanna look at it in a different way, creative view. - Yes. - Absolutely. - No, I love that. So do you think there is a simple starter project you'd recommend someone maybe put in air table to get familiar with it? - Yeah, if you are a creative person, start with content. Because you already have a process in a way that you organize content. So it's gonna be the easiest thing for you to be able to architect an air table 'cause you already have a way you do it. So I would go into air table and if you know that you track, okay, well, I'm tracking content based off of idea, ready for creative, need brainstorming, whatever, create a status field, single select, and you can track, okay, this is the status of each of these things. If you are doing different platforms, like Instagram, threads, LinkedIn, YouTube, blah, blah, you then create a medium field. So you can track, okay, this content is for this medium. If you know that you wanna repurpose something, you can create a little check box field saying, I wanna repurpose. - Yeah. - Check. - And then you can create a new view saying, what is all the content that I wanna be able to repurpose for something and then only look at that content. So use the process that you already have. This is also probably a pretty big thing. Air table isn't going to any software. It's not gonna tell you the system to use. Like you have to come up with that process and system yourself and then you will the tool to execute it. You already know your content process. So all you have to do is just add it into air table and allow air table to be the keeper of that process for you. So content is a very good simple one to be able to start with. - Yes, love that, love that. And I think that's so true, because I mean, everybody has content. - So everybody has content. - Start putting that in there and making it really simple for yourself that way. It's like, you know, you're foot in the door and speaking of like with their foot in the door, what would you say to someone who is intimidated by the tech side of things and how can they ease into it without getting overwhelmed? But then in addition to that, when would you suggest that they utilize someone like you who is a systems architect essentially? - Yeah, I'll start with your first question of like, if you feel a little intimidated, like maybe tech isn't your thing, start with the problem, not the platform. So kind of what I was alluding to previously is air tables not going to tell you, this is the way, this is the way to do this system. - It's a blank slide. It's an empty Excel sheet. - It's a pretty, it's gonna stare at you as you stare back at it. So start with again, what do I wanna use this for? Like backtrack, what is it that I wanna organize? I wanna look at sales data? Okay, what sales data? You know, if that's not a silly question, like okay, well, I wanna know when sales came in, I wanna know where it came from, was it Stripe? Was it Upwork? Is there Stripe fees? I wanna know the fees because you know, I always seem to forget that. And as you start to ask yourself these questions of what is it that I wanna track? What is it that I wanna know? You don't realize that you're already starting to build out the table that you want inside of air table. So start with that. And then you can build from there. Start with questions that you want answered, those are your fields. Start with what do you not wanna repeat anymore? That's now your automations. What are questions that you don't wanna answer anymore? Those are more fields of like, let's make sure that this is in here so I can just go, go to the air table. The information is there. You don't need to be tech savvy to be able to utilize air table. You just need to be aware of your problems that's gonna be such an interesting sound bite. You just need to start with your problems but you just need to start with your problems so then you know what you wanna start tracking so you can start solving it. So I would start there and start small. Like you do not need 25 custom fields in the beginning. I started with three. And I'm someone who's in systems because it is overwhelming, it is a lot. But once you start with one table, one problem that you're solving and then you build your next table and relate it to your other table. You can start building with this. Air table is really, really good on building upon itself. You don't need to build the whole thing. And one go, you can really build on this. I'm still adding things to my customer no log in portal. Like I just changed something about it and I was like, oh, like I've had time to think about it so I'm just gonna do do do do do do do do do do do. Air table allows me to do that. You know, I can build on whatever I've already done. Which I think is also really good for creative people because I feel like we have an idea. And then we just need, we need some processing time and then we'll come back and then we'll just add more to it. Air table gives you so much leeway to be able to do so. So start with one problem, one table, start with a couple of fields and then build as you go. Like it's really suited for creative minded people and ADHD adjacent people like me. So like it's, it will, it's not, it is like the non techie tech platform for creative people. - Yes. - Hopefully that makes sense. And then the second part, the second part to your question of when, when do you bring somebody in? Is when, honestly, when you don't have time to architect this yourself, I fully believe like with any of my clients or really anybody who would be interested in working with me, y'all are very, very capable of being able to build this out. It's just not your job. Your business owner, you have a whole bunch of other things you have to do. Why spend time trying to learn and build this as you go which you could when you could be using that to make sales, when you could be using that to do work, when you could be, there's so many other things that your time could be better utilized for where you could just hire someone like me to build you something really, really cool. I just finished building a payroll thing for somebody. They had all their data and we just like this whole little payroll app for them. So cool. They knew air table, like they are of that in air table. They still hired me and my team because they're like, but that's not my role. I know this, but my job is to do this. And so I need you to do this. The only difference was that they could tell me exactly how they wanted it built because they knew air table, which is great. Cool. You know, have enough knowledge to be dangerous, but bring somebody like me on. Bring me on, please. Bring me on. If you know that your time can be better utilized elsewhere, which you and I both know that it can and just allow me to do what I do best, this is my job. So let me do it. Yeah. No, I think that's so important too is because as a business owner, like your focus, your soul focus needs to be on those sales generating activities because that's how you make money. So if you're spending your time working on the back end and the in the weeds of things, you're going to miss out on getting there. Like yes, you are fully capable of doing it. But do you want that to be where you're spending your time? Yeah, exactly. So the for the wrap, I really want to ask how could people connect with you and dive deeper into your air table magic? Yeah, I'm on threads a lot. Please find me on threads. Adolesive with Jackson, my maiden name. I am usually talking about a really cool thing. I'm doing an air table on there. It just happens. So if you want us to see some info about what I'm doing in air table and how I'm using it, go there. When it comes to connecting with me in terms of how to work with me, I've actually created plug and play air table plus templates plus because it's not just the air table base. It's also the automations that come with it. So a couple of the use cases that we talked about, the Q&A hotline, my quote generator and price calculator, my no log in portal. Those are all air table templates. And these aren't just like, I think you hear templates and you're like, oh, okay, it's just like you got to get everything and I have to customize it. These are little mini systems. Like these are little mini systems that I've created for you. You literally only need to import it and then plug in the zaps and it's done. That's it. Just start putting in information. So those have been really beneficial for streamlining feedback for tickets. Like if you want to have your own ticketing form, literally, it's in there. It's a one and done payment. And now you have a customer service system that you don't have to use in your email or don't have to use email or my list lacks anymore. So if you're in the do it yourself stage, you're like, I'm capable and I have the time to do it. Go with the air table plus templates. If you're like, I'm capable, but this is not where I should be spending my time, you should go to my website, theafrocoach.com. Go to the contact form and just reach out to me. We have system free boots, pit my ops, both systems packages. You'll see why on the site, that allow you to be able to utilize us. Where we're not only helping you with your AOTO vocals, but also just systemizing your business in general. So threads, my website, I have been known to do a couple Instagram stories or two on Instagram. So you can find me on Instagram as well, same handle. And yeah, those are probably the best places to be able to find me. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for spending your time with us today, Elizabeth, and giving some information on a system. Not just air table though, but like the importance of systems in general. And I really appreciate that. Yeah. No, thank you so much for having me. This was fun. I love being able to geek out on air table. Thank you. And that's a wrap for today's episode of the Creative Minds. Smart Money Podcast. Huge thanks to Elizabeth Jackson for sharing such practical wisdom on using systems to create real freedom in your business. If you love this conversation, be sure to connect with Elizabeth and check out her air table resources. And if this episode sparked an idea, or you share it with a friend, you could use a little more ease in their business too. As always, I hope you have the best week ever. and we'll see you next week. Farewell fellow travelers.