Episode 63: Building Freedom Into Your Business with Airtable with Elisabeth Jackson

  📍 Welcome to the Creative Minds Smart Money Podcast, where we turn financial confusion into creative confidence. I’m Samantha Eck, bookkeeper 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 are listening to the Creative Minds 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 operations 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. It’s 5:00 AM here, so like we’re actually, I’m wide awake. We’re doing pretty okay. My baby is sleeping. It’s a good day.

Yes. That’s so good I feel like sometimes when you wake up at 5:00 AM 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. It’s 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 Airtable, which is what we’re talking about today.

Yeah, so you, you really, condensed it in that, description of who I am, of just what, really drew me to Airtable was I am into process improvement. I have been an ops 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 Airtable.

I love so much because, it’s essentially a Google sheet on steroids. It’s a database that I’m able to splice my data any way 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 gonna 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 Airtable, 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

Yeah.

like, told me. Out your program that you had coming out at Airtable. They’re like, you’re gonna love what she is coming at Airtable. And I

Yeah.

along and I still love it.

Thank you.

so that’s so exciting. For folks who’ve never heard of Airtable 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 steroid, 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, 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 Airtable as your blueprint to just understanding what’s going on, what it is you want to do, what it is you wanna look out for, how you, go about. Looking at each detail before you start building something, or 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 Airtable? It’s a great way for you to be able to track client sales, task, contact, whatever it is that you would like to track, and you’d like to look at your numbers four. And it allows you, and this is the best part, ’cause I think people think like, well if it’s just Google Sheets, but just like more powerful, like why wouldn’t I just use Google sheets?

Airtable 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 health tracker inside of Airtable.

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 and 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

Okay.

put it into one central place.

This makes it so much easier if you’re somebody who like me before Airtable. I like to just. Put my data down wherever I, whatever, I have an arm’s reach, so I’ll write it down in a notepad. I’ll voice it in Otter and then just wait for it to show up in Asana. I’ll talk about it in Asana. I’ll talk about it in a meeting with my team.

Data’s everywhere, right? So when you’re able to put that all into Airtable 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 Airtable 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 a mile a minute. 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 agencies, so I work with a lot of creative people. What makes Airtable 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. 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 Airtable has allowed 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. An Airtable 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 data and be like, okay, wait.

Am I pricing this appropriately? Am I making sure my team is paid? Am I making sure I’m paid? Like are we, are we good across the board? Yes, then I can send it as opposed to just guessing and getting myself in a cycle of constantly not paying myself constantly, not putting enough profit in the business, constantly not getting my team paid, constantly under scoping.

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 the things, but what other kind of business decisions get easier when you’ve got clear centralized data to work from?

Ooh, so many, so many. I have, a quote generator. That has helped me with my pricing so much. I did not think that Airtable initially when I got it initially, when I got it, it was for something like content tracking. I just wanted to keep track of all my content ideas. Right. And that’s why I saw other people using it until I got really into building with it.

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, these are my profit margins. This is how much I pay my team. And 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’s 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 by too much? Like is it in line with what, makes sense in terms of inflation and everything?

That’s a whole separate conversation, but I can track that inside of Airtable, capacity. Capacity. Make it so much easier with Airtable because the way you are able, you can’t hide from data. Data doesn’t lie. And so when you think, or you, or you feel like, oh, this is, this is how much time I’m spending on something.

This is how much time my team is spending on something. And then you look at it and Airtable and you’re like, oh, we are over-resourced. So now we have to make some decisions. Do I

Yeah.

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.

Yes,

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 it the, the most profitable thing? ’cause 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 Airtable and make a decision on, okay, what am I promoting this quarter?

When am I promoting this month? And then check that capacity tracker and be like, okay, what do my team have capacity for? Cool. That’s what I’m focusing on. You can make launch decisions faster. You can make like those quick little flash deals that you wanna 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, I don’t, I’m not about promoting Airtable as a way to be able to do your taxes or anything like that. Just wanna make 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 Airtable 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 Airtable base into a ticketing hub. So what I do with my clients is after they finish a 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 gonna be some troubleshooting, there’s gonna be some you. 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 Airtable 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 Airtable.

But then here’s the fun part. Airtable 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 Airtable, and Airtable pushes it to Asana and assigns it to the appropriate person based on the client.

’cause in our client’s table it says which team member is. In charge of that client. So what 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. ’cause 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 a, an Airtable. It allows us to be able to, then I’ve dynamically, this is an advanced case. You do not need to do this. This is your first time in Airtable. We’ve been able to dynamically create. Auto-populated forms in Airtable.

So anytime a client populates the form, then it pushes to us. We can respond, but we respond in Airtable through a form that’s already been prefilled and we just answer, whatever we see. The question is then auto it 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 their 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. Airtable takes care, Airtable and Zapier specifically 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 Airtable and Airtable 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 request, which feedback is where I use Airtable to be able to track, okay, for each thing that we’re doing.

Where are we at in the feedback process? We do our feedback forms through Airtable and we’re able to track how many feedback loops we’ve gone through. ’cause 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 Airtable 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, et cetera, and 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 Asana 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, Airtable allows you to execute faster and speed is everything in business when you can do it intentionally and Airtable allows you to do that.

Yes. And I love that. And I love that you are mentioning that it is pairing like with your project management system because I

Hmm.

many of us in the creative space, in the business space that get there is a software that’s a one size fits all. It’s just

Yes.

everything. there’s just, there’s not, there’s, there’s certain softwares that are great for certain use cases, but then you need something else to to supplement. To supplement it. 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.

Hundred percent. And I’m always side eyeing 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 in one area, which means that other areas had to be just shortchanged.

That’s just the nature of it. It nothing is going to be good at every single thing. That’s why it’s so much better, and I, I’m telling this to my clients

Yeah.

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 than us trying to make a one size fits all tool that’s subpar and six of the things that you really need and really good at.

Four things that you’re not gonna need at this 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 Airtable, Airtable 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 Airtable was built, because it wasn’t made that way. Like its notification systems, the way that it, is connected wasn’t 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 it pushing and just connect it to Airtable or click up whatever you decide to use. I would much rather do that than try and make Airtable into what it’s not. Because we want a one size fits all too tool.

We can just make everything connect and talk to each other to make it feel like it’s a one size fits all tool. It’s just your tech 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 pegs a square peg. Let’s stop trying to jam it in there. Let’s just find the, find the hole that fits. 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.

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 you’re, your systems are well managed, you know?

Yes. Mm-hmm.

So you answered one of my questions already, which is what

Oh,

the most underrated use case for Airtable in a small or growing business? Which, I mean, for me personally, I think one of the most underrated use cases is definitely that wholesale thing, like combining all your sales data, especially if you’re someone who has like several different streams, like maybe of

yes.

and square and things like that.

Just getting everything in one place will just make it easier. But do you think

Mm-hmm.

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, if you need it. It’s underrated. If you don’t, you’re just gonna be like, this is excess Elizabeth, and that’s fine. But I, one of the underrated ways to use Airtable is not just as a way to like organize your data and splice it, et cetera.

You can also literally use it, like going back to that analogy of Airtable kind of acting as the blueprint to the foundation of your house. It can also be the foundation for a lot of automations and. Apps. I have used Airtable to make different apps for myself. I have a no login client portal where Airtable is my, 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 Airtable through an automation. Airtable 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, et cetera. When they fill out that form, it pushes back into Airtable, pushes into our Asana, lets 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’re able to see all the high level tasks inside of our asana. That our client facing, ’cause 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 Airtable. Airtable is taking that information and pushing it into the portal. One of my favorite but underrated cases ever because I use dub sodo and I love them to bits hate their client portal.

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 trying to remember all my passwords and logins. And at the same time, I think this is actually where we might’ve connected. I did a whole thread on, 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 house. Like I’d much rather give them their own space. 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 Airtable. 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. Like 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 and a hotline? The link is in there, it’s perfectly crafted. So that. Airtable is the workhorse. We get 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 Airtable as a workhorse, not just as a database, but as a working, to back something like an app. And like Airtable makes it so easy to make apps as well. They have a whole entire, I think 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 of, I think the reason we connected is ’cause I was trying to see if I could utilize Airtable for like a client portal where I could like send my proposals and things like that. And I remember someone being like, oh, you’re gonna love Elizabeth. They’re like, you should definitely check out what she’s building. And I think it’s just so cool that you can do all of that. Within Airtable and still have like, you know, you have your project management system, you have Airtable over here, and you can combine them and make something really pretty without having to have all of

Yes.

different extra systems that aren’t necessarily like useful in

Exactly.

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 gonna sound so boring. What’s the goal? Like, what’s, what’s the workflow that we’re actually trying to track here? Because I think with Airtable, anybody who’s even like, looked into Airtable, whether you, whether you use it currently or you’re a beginner and you’re listening to this and you’re looking at it while listening to us talk, Airtable is a sandbox.

You can really make it anything that you want it to. Because of that. I think of it almost like, you know, back in school when you’d have those essays of, write whatever you wanna talk about and you’re like, cool until you actually go to do it. And you’re like, what do I write? I don’t have no idea. I feel like that’s the same thing with Airtable 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 wanna 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 gonna 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 Airtable. ’cause I find I, I’ve kind of bloat my Airtable 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 Airtable. We have your base, which is kind of like your, your Google Sheet workbook, if we’re keeping it connected to Excel and Google Sheets. You have your tables, which is each of your sheets, and then, you know, you have your columns and your row columns or your fields.

And then your rows are your records. So. It can be really easy to think, I’m just gonna put everything in one table. I don’t need multiple tables. That is, that is, grossly underestimating, and under utilizing Airtable and can make your Airtable 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 wanna track. My sales data. But I also wanna track my client data as well. I’m not gonna put client in da in sales data in the same table.

I’m gonna keep those separate

Yep.

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 commingled with client email and name and all this other stuff that’s just not.

I don’t need that. But if I wanna 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 date. 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 what my clients are doing.

We, we then want that information to be separated. If you know that the data for what you wanna 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 gonna 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 gonna 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 it 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 dropdown.

Yeah.

And, oh, this is probably my favorite one. If you know. That the data that you wanna look at is within one table, but you wanna look at it a different way. Maybe if we’re looking at, for example, when I have my tickets, when I wanna look at, okay, my clients are sending in tickets, et cetera, I’m not gonna make a new table of like, well, I only wanna, I wanna look at this, but I only wanna look at those that have been sent within the last five days.

I don’t wanna look at all of them.

Okay.

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 wanna look at. So you have your table that has everything in it, and then you can make another view of, I only wanna see those with a start, a 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

Yes.

to four hacks. We’ll start, we’ll end there. I have a lot, but those are probably my favorite ones. And that’s a great place to start. Know your workflow. Try 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, create a view.

Yes, absolutely. No, I love that. So do you think there’s a simple like starter project you’d recommend someone maybe like put in Airtable to get familiar with it?

Yeah, if you are a creative person, start with content because you already have a process and a way that you organize content. So it’s gonna be the easiest thing for you to be able to architect an Airtable ’cause you already have a way you do it. So I would go into Airtable and if you know that, you track.

Okay. Well, I’m tracking content based off of idea, ready for creative, needs, 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, 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 checkbox field saying, I wanna repurpose this 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 this. The process that you already have. This is also probably a big, pretty big thing. Airtable isn’t going to like any sys, 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’ll the tool to execute it. You already know your content process, so all you have to do is just add it into Airtable and allow Airtable 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. ’cause I mean, everybody has content,

Everybody has content.

start putting that in there and making it really simple for yourself that way. like, you know, your 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

Hmm.

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 starting 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 Airtable. Iss not going to tell you this is the way, this is the way to do the system. It’s, it’s a blank.

It’s a, it’s an empty Excel sheet essentially. 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. 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 want to track? What is it that I want to know? You don’t realize that you’re already starting to build out the table that you want inside of Airtable.

So start with, 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 want to answer anymore? Those are more fields of like, let’s make sure this is in here so I can just go, go to the Airtable.

The information is there. You don’t need to be tech savvy to be able to utilize Airtable. You just need to be aware of your problems. That sounded, that’s gonna be such an interesting soundbite. 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, I would start there and start small. Like you do not need 25 custom fields in the beginning. I started with three, like 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. Airtable is really, really good on building upon itself. You don’t need to build the whole thing in one go. You can really build on this. I’m still adding things to my customer. No login portal. Like I just changed something about it and I was like, ah, like I’ve had time to think about it, so I’m just gonna do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

Airtable allows me to do that. I can build on what 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. Airtable 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 a DHD 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,

sense.

yes.

second que 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 and really anybody who would be interested in working with me, y’all are very, very capable of being able to fill, figure this out.

It’s just not your job. If you’re a 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 did this whole little payroll app for them. So cool. They knew Airtable. Like they are a vet in Airtable. They still hired me and my team. ’cause they were 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 Airtable, which is great. Cool. You know, make your, like, 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 sole focus needs to be on those sales generating activities. ’cause that’s

Yeah.

money.

Mm-hmm.

you’re spending your time working on the backend and the in, in the weeds of things, you’re gonna 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. Before we wrap, I really wanna ask how can people connect with you and dive deeper into your Airtable magic?

Yeah. I’m on Threads a lot. Please find me on threads at Elizabeth Jackson, my maiden name. I am usually talking about a really cool thing. I’m doing an Airtable on there. It just happens. So if you want us to see some info about what I’m doing in Airtable 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 Airtable 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 and a hotline, my quote generator and price calculator, my no login portal. Those are all Airtable templates. And these aren’t just like, I think you hear templates and you’re like, oh, okay. It’s just like you gotta 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 wanna 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 slacks 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 Airtable 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, the afro coach.com.

Go to the contact form and just reach out to me. We have, systems, reboots, pimp, 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 atop goals, but also just. Systemizing your business in general. So, threads my website.

I, 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 Airtable 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 Airtable.

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 Airtable resources, and if this episode sparked an idea for you, share it with a friend who 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.