From Tech Overwhelm to Streamlined Systems with Kronda Adair

Andréa Jones [00:00:00]:
If you are constantly getting lost in the tech of it all, today's guest, Kronda Adair, is going to help clarify things. Plus, I'm gonna get super nosy about her own marketing. But first a word from our sponsor. I've recorded over 300 podcast episodes. Yeah. It's a lot of podcast episodes and I've tried a lot of different virtual recording studios, but my favorite has been Riverside. Riverside makes their virtual recording studio look so profesh. My guests love it.

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Andréa Jones [00:01:19]:
It's Drea, d r e a, and try Riverside for yourself. Thank you, Riverside. Welcome back to the Mindful Marketing podcast where we help you connect more, scroll less, and grow together. I'm Andrea Jones and I'm excited to introduce you to Kronda today. Kronda, welcome to the show.

Kronda Adair [00:01:37]:
Thank you so much.

Andréa Jones [00:01:39]:
I'm excited to chat with you because as we kind of connected on earlier, we've been orbiting around each other professionally for a while, and I'm like, how do I not know you? So this episode is, like, my excuse to just pick your brain about your brilliance even more. So welcome. Welcome. Great. First, though, yes, I would like to start with your journey. How did we land on, like, systems and tech and automation? Give us the background.

Kronda Adair [00:02:05]:
Yeah. So I started out, almost 12 years. By the time y'all listen to this, it'll be 12 years, ago, making $500 WordPress websites. I was a web developer, and I figured out pretty quickly that that wasn't really helping too many people and figured out how to charge more, make better websites. And, you know, the thing that makes a website valuable is that it's a marketing tool. So I was studying marketing and learning about, you know, lead magnets and all email marketing and all the things. And when I would talk to some of my web development clients about that, they were like, just just build the website, you know, kind of like, I'm just paying you to do the tech. And I got super frustrated with that because I knew, you know, there's no if you build it, they were, they will come.

Kronda Adair [00:02:51]:
Right? You have to have a plan. And so in at the end of 2018, I decided to stop making websites, and I started content boot camp. And that was a, 10, eventually, 12 week coaching program literally to teach business owners how to market online, how to use content marketing. I called it teaching them how to be people online. So I started that in 2019 and had a year under my belt by the time 2020 hit, and everybody had to go online whether they wanted to or not. So that worked out really well. And within 9 months of starting that program, my clients were pretty much begging me for help with their tech. And so I was like, okay.

Kronda Adair [00:03:31]:
Let me not I didn't wanna go back to selling websites. So I'm like, let me just figure out a retainer, and I'll just put everything into it that y'all are struggling with. And so we would do almost everything except social media. So websites, email marketing, course platform building, that kind of stuff. So that was going really well. I did that for 2, 3 years until economy changed or market changed, and then I had to figure out, okay, what do people need right now? And so I pivoted to really focusing on, marketing automation because I started auditing specifically what people would be like, hey. Give me $500 and let me get into your active campaign and see what you're doing. And it wasn't much.

Kronda Adair [00:04:14]:
Most people were in there, you know, just sending their broadcast, their monthly, or, you know, bimonthly. And I'm like, wow. You've got this Ferrari, and you're just using it to, like, drop your kid off at school. Like, what are we doing? So, I created an offer called CRM to sales and launched that to just a really small part of my list and some past clients, and they ate that up. And so I did that for a while, and then we had to really expand it because it's not just, like, there's more to automation than marketing automation, and we were doing back end stuff. We were doing Airtable builds. We were doing, you know, automating onboarding and offboarding and all these things. And I'm like, this offer does not really speak to everything that we're doing and everything that we're capable of doing.

Kronda Adair [00:05:01]:
And so that's how we ended up on, $1,000,000 systems. So that's our current offer, and there's basically 2 ways to work with us, $1,000,000 systems and automation club, which is my membership. And so we got here because your marketing can be as great as it wants to be. But if you can't deliver on the back end, then you're just gonna be stressed out and you're not gonna sell. And so, you know, people don't understand that sometimes when you feel blocked and selling, it's because you know how much work it's gonna be to deliver because you haven't systemized and you haven't automated and, you know, things are not efficient. So that is how we live here.

Andréa Jones [00:05:36]:
Yeah. I love what you said about, you know, when we're looking at the tech and the automation of it all, like, it has to match the marketing. Like, people can't come into your world, into your orbit and be, like, wowed by the shiny marketing, and then they get inside and they're like, this is it. You know? I love that.

Kronda Adair [00:05:53]:
And I think we've both been in those those situations where we're like, oh, great marketing, not so great on the inside.

Andréa Jones [00:05:59]:
Yeah. Yeah. It's the worst feeling ever. But also I'm thinking about, like, you know, the business owners who are there. They're like, okay. So now what? So if someone's looking at their systems, their automations, where do we start? Like, what are the questions we ask? And I'll say this to you as, like, total aside, y'all. What I love about your marketing and your social media is that I know you're not gonna just go, oh, Kajabi is the answer to everything. Because it just feels like a lot of these, like, experts, those are air quotes for those listening experts, they already know the tool, the one tool to rule them all and then they just, like, shove people into the tool.

Andréa Jones [00:06:37]:
And what I love about your marketing is they're like, well, let's dig a little deeper. Right? So as we're going on this path of, like, figuring out what to systematize and what to automate, what are some of the early day questions we should be asking ourselves?

Kronda Adair [00:06:50]:
Yeah. So I'll I'll give 2 answers to this. One is if you're, let's say, like, a new business owner and you're like, oh, I barely had you know, I'm getting started. Like, what should I automate it? So that answer is always the same, your scheduling. Get a Calendly account for the love of kittens, and please do not do the email back and forth trying to schedule with people. It just makes you look like a rank amateur. So that would be, like, if you're just getting started. If you've been going for a while and you've got, you know, a mature business, you've got systems, you're like, hey.

Kronda Adair [00:07:20]:
This train is going, but things feel, like, really chaotic. Where do I start? I always like to start with onboarding, all things being equal. Like, that's the first impression that your client's gonna have after they give you money. And that is like a fork in the road that can go very, very right or very, very wrong. So making that good first impression, I think, counts for a lot. And that's that's a really good place to start if you're like, I don't I don't know. I just gotta pick something. That's a good place to start.

Andréa Jones [00:07:50]:
Yeah. We all get buyers' remorse sometimes too when we buy things. So having that onboarding process can really, like, smooth out that entire that entire thing. So when we're thinking about systems and automation, can you define how those two things are different?

Kronda Adair [00:08:06]:
Oh, yes. Thank you for asking this. Okay. So yeah. Because people think tech is systems, and that is that cannot be further from the truth. So a system is is just a series of steps that lead to an outcome. And so every single thing in your life is a system. How you brush your teeth is a system.

Kronda Adair [00:08:25]:
How you get ready to take your dog on a walk is a system. Like, everything is a system. And so what we do with our clients is we you know, like, if someone comes into our retainer, the first thing we do is have a 90 minute strategy call where I'm saying, hey. Okay. How does this thing happen? And then what? And then what happens? And then what happens? Like, if you want to know the question to ask yourself, it's like, what's the trigger that starts this process, and then what happens? And you keep asking that question, and better yet, have someone else ask you that question until you have it all laid out, and you will like, people are shocked. I ran I did a workshop, helping people map out their systems. And then, you know, we do hot seat, and they'd be like, yeah. And then the sales calls happens.

Kronda Adair [00:09:07]:
And I was like, and how do they get to the sales call? You know? It's just like, we're so easy to skip over the things. So asking what happens next and getting that down, like document we haven't even talked about documentation yet, but that is a huge part of what we do and a huge part of really what makes us different from a lot of other agencies is the level and the detail of documentation that we do.

Andréa Jones [00:09:31]:
Yeah. Yeah. This is something that was, like, a must for me when I was running my agency is that, especially when I was time trying to teach people to do what I do, there are so many things that we discredit in this process where we're like, oh, well, we just, you know, well, oh, well, we just do this. We just do this. And, really, there's, like, 10 steps involved in that process.

Kronda Adair [00:09:49]:
So once you have the system and it's laid out, I'm always telling people it's, like, step away from the technology. Once you have actually laid out what happens, then you can apply technology to parts of that system. Right? We're not trying to automate every single thing, but you can ask like, hey. Could the robots take care of this? If it's repetitive, if it has a consistent data input and a consistent data output, that's a great case for automating that step. And one of the things I always say is stop buying technology and start hiring technology. And so we literally sit down and say, okay. You have this job that needs to be done. What are some of the tools that could do this job? And it's gonna narrow if you, you know, if you feel overwhelmed about, like, oh, there's all these tools.

Kronda Adair [00:10:32]:
Which one do I cheat? If I see one more person, like, on social media, like, what's the best CRM? Like, step away from the technology and go figure out what you want it to look like, and then you can see which tools are gonna help you do that.

Andréa Jones [00:10:47]:
A 100%. And I think that because there are so

Kronda Adair [00:10:49]:
many, it's, like, overwhelmed with how many there are, and you can

Andréa Jones [00:10:49]:
go down the YouTube review rabbit hole. And you can go down the YouTube review rabbit hole of, like, should I do all of this? I had a client once who, was like this with project management tools. I mean, we went through all of them, Asana, Basecamp, Monday, Trello. Nothing was happening except we just kept moving all of our projects from tool to tool. And so I think I think we've all had those experiences where we're like, well, this the the shoe's not fitting here. So how like, once we do have the job assigned, I mean, what what how do we find the right tool? Is it preference based, or is there, like, a recipe to this?

Kronda Adair [00:11:26]:
It's a little bit preference based. Right? But but whose preference? Right? So if you're the CEO and you're like, I'm gonna micromanage the, you know, choice of project management tool. Are you the one as the CEO that's gonna be in the project management tool every day? Like, and you have a team of 5 people? I think not. Right? So who is gonna be using the tool and really in the tool every day? So there is a level of preference. 1st, there's, though, can it do the job? Right? Can it do the job? And then second and almost as important is does it play nice with the rest of the team? Because if you could be the most amazing tool in the world, but if it's a black box and it doesn't integrate with anything, it's a nonstarter. Like, there is no automation without transfer of data. So these all in one tools that are like, oh, Yuki, we can do everything. You don't need anyone else.

Kronda Adair [00:12:16]:
Like, that just feels like an abusive relationship to me. Like, I don't know. Shots fired. But it's like no one tool can do all the things. And these all in ones, 2 things. They don't tend to integrate well with everything else, and they tend to wanna trap your data. So this is the other question I ask when I'm looking at technology is, what happens when I wanna pick up my tools and my toys and go home? Right? So can you export your data? And I cannot tell you Like, I've just learned to scroll past when people are, you know, like, oh, I need to escape Dubsado, but I can't get my stuff. I'm like, yeah.

Kronda Adair [00:12:53]:
Good luck. Like, you're gonna have to, you know, hire a VA from off Upwork or whatever to manually copy and paste your 5 years of contracts or whatever data. And it's like you know? If you know that going in and you wanna make that decision and then you wanna back up things as it's going into this black hole, that's that's one thing. But people don't know, and they they generally won't do that.

Andréa Jones [00:13:16]:
Okay. I feel personally attacked because I just got off Dubsado last year. As a Dubsado fan too, I was like, why is this so challenging? And also, I will I will also say people rave about Kajabi, and, like, I've tried it multiple times, and I just cannot get into it. I don't know.

Kronda Adair [00:13:35]:
I no. Not Kajabi is on my I have a blog post that's like, these are all the tools that are stealing your productivity, and Kajabi is high on because, again, they're trying to do everything. And, you know, as a student, I've been in Kajabi, you know, and it's it's fine. But, like, for integrations, if you want to track your sales and you have a membership or you're doing, like, you know, multiple payments, it's not great at tracking that kind of thing. Email marking, get out of here. Get out like, just do not. I had somebody who wanted me to help them kind of troubleshoot their email marketing, look at the analytics. You cannot export marketing performance out of Kajabi.

Kronda Adair [00:14:15]:
You have to literally click each time on one email and go, oh, show me how many clicks. Show me like, what year is it? No. Absolutely not. Yeah. Okay. I I'm I'm helping someone break up with Kajabi right now, and she's like, oh, it's been 5 years, and I've got my hoodie in my butt. I'm like, you know what? This is like the end of, you know, Wicked part 1 where they they they love each other, but they have to go their separate ways.

Andréa Jones [00:14:42]:
Yes. Oh my gosh. The references. Okay. I'm total like, I love this. And I feel like we all learn this lesson so many times over the years. And so are there any tools where you're you're championing them? You mentioned Calendly. Are there any other tools where you're like, yes,

Kronda Adair [00:14:57]:
this is this is great? So here's the thing. Like, I I'm about to make an update to my I have a podcast episode on choosing your tech stack. It's I think it's, like, 2 years 2 or 3 years old. And I'm about to make an update to it because I've had a couple of major changes in my tech stock for the first time in, like, 10 years. So when I get on a tool, like, I stay I stay on a tool. Like, I I want things that last, and that's what I try to put people on is things that'll last them the next 5, 10 years of their business. So, if I had to say right now, Airtable is a must. I don't think anyone should be operating in business without using Airtable as, like, the repository for your your data and organizing your data.

Kronda Adair [00:15:40]:
And in combination with that, fill out is a third party form tool that has replaced Jotform for me. I'm not mad at Jotform, but fill out is just better. It integrates really well with Airtable where you can connect your Airtable base and then drag the the fields that you've already created out into it to make your form, and then everything goes back to Airtable. So, I just did a really great power hour with someone, and she's like, I want people to be able to nominate these dogs for awards, and then we have to look at them as a committee and vote on them. And so she came to Automation Club office hours, and she's like, how do I get these dog people who don't know the Internet to be able to look at this information and then add their own notes without they they can't log in to Airtable. Like, that's not happening. Yeah. So it's like, okay.

Kronda Adair [00:16:25]:
So basically using Airtable and fill out, I gave her that solution in 13 minutes.

Andréa Jones [00:16:30]:
Nice. Beautiful. I love it. I'm a Airtable girlie as well. Like, someone else tried to get me on Notion, and I was like, it's not it's not the same. We're talking 2 different languages here.

Kronda Adair [00:16:40]:
Yeah. I mean, I I love notion, and I I really would love to have a use for notion. I've dabbled with it as sort of a life organization tool. But when it comes to, like, just managing data and automating that data, like, there's yeah. There's no comparison. Yeah.

Andréa Jones [00:16:56]:
Worlds apart. Worlds apart. Okay. So here's a part of the show where I wanna get a little nosy about your own marketing because one of the things that stood out to me is this idea that you don't use freebies anymore. So tell me how we got to this idea, and then I have more follow-up questions.

Kronda Adair [00:17:14]:
Okay. So how we got here? Well, Danielle Gardner, who's, the quiet marketer, is, one of the main inspirations for this because she did this years ago, and she has a post, you know, kind of detailing like, oh, my sales tripled when I stopped giving it away for free, basically. And so there's a few things. I'm I'm kinda kicking myself that it took me so long to do this. But one is, as a black woman, like, people are super quick to try not paying you. Like, I have you know? And I have experiences where even people who are already clients are trying to get more out of me without paying. So I think that's just in the DNA of our society. And so it's like, if you want help, come get help.

Kronda Adair [00:17:56]:
You know? Like, let's not sit on the email list for 5 years first. Like, what what good is that doing anybody? Right? So that was one of the impetus. And then it's like, I just I've like I said, like, when people actually let me help them, I can solve the problems really quickly. So that was really the catalyst. And so it's it's early days, and it's it's an experiment. The other reason is that I the offers I have now, I have digital products. I have you know, people can join automation club for free for 30 days. Like, I have things low risk, you know, no risk ways for you to come and try us out, get to know us.

Kronda Adair [00:18:31]:
You know? I have a I have 12 years worth of content. You know? So it's like you don't have to get on the email list. You can go on my YouTube channel. You can go listen to my podcast. You can go read my blog post. You can go figure out if I'm the person to help you and then come when you're ready for help.

Andréa Jones [00:18:47]:
Yeah. Okay. I love this because I do feel like there is so much free information just readily available. And I'm still a huge proponent of, like, the Costco sample, like, here's a little slice of cheese, now buy the whole thing. I love that. And I feel like there's other ways that we could do this. Like, I don't know if we're if, like, the traditional lead magnet model is just going to become less appealing over time. But I know for me personally, when I find someone that I connect with, I like their vibe, I end up like listening to podcasts and then buying something.

Andréa Jones [00:19:23]:
Maybe I'll sign up to their newsletter for there's like different content there, but lead magnets just don't do it for me anymore. I don't know.

Kronda Adair [00:19:29]:
Yeah.

Andréa Jones [00:19:29]:
I find it interesting.

Kronda Adair [00:19:30]:
I think the people who make the best clients and the people I wanna work with are the people who want it. You know? There's like, I don't want someone who's like, oh, I'm doing this because I've been told that that I should. Right? Like

Andréa Jones [00:19:44]:
Yeah.

Kronda Adair [00:19:45]:
What's more uninspiring than someone who's like, yeah. I know I need assistance getting systems together. So okay. Let's do like, no. Like, I want the people I literally had a sales call, and then I sent a follow-up email and didn't hear back. So checked in a couple days later, and she was like, oh, sorry. I ghosted you. I was busy binging your content.

Kronda Adair [00:20:03]:
She's like, I love everything that I was like, I will be back. You know? Yeah. That's what I want. I want you to be able to just go and that's how people like to buy. If you think about it, anytime you're gonna make a large purchase or something that's really important to you, we you're going and you're researching that thing or that person or that program. And so what I wanna do is put out a lot of content that shows people what is possible because people don't know what's possible. People don't understand that, oh, I saw I saw a thread actually just last week where it's just like somebody was like, okay. I understand Asana and ClickUp and all that, but what about Airtable? And people were like, oh, Airtable is just colorful spreadsheets.

Kronda Adair [00:20:40]:
And I was like, excuse you? No. I don't. I do not think. I'm like, we just save this company 15 hours a week using Airtable to automate their entire onboarding process, and it's one of the most complex systems that we've built. So color no. I think not.

Andréa Jones [00:20:56]:
Yeah. Okay. I love this. And I think, what I'm curious about too is as like, when did you implement this and what are some of the results that you've seen so far from it? Because you've already mentioned, like, better quality clients, but what else?

Kronda Adair [00:21:10]:
I like, this is new. It's new. Like, as we're talking, it's probably been a month that I act like, that I actually did it, where I took I took my lead magnet page and I redirected it to the home pay or I think to the home page. I don't know what I did with it. But I was like, yeah. You gotta buy something. Yeah. Go go buy something.

Kronda Adair [00:21:29]:
Like, here, go try the the pot of gold air table content marketing database. Go come join automate like, come get some help. I'm right I'm right here. We can do this. And I think I think it keeps the people who would buy something and then that the the fact of the purchase would make them feel like, oh, I did something. Right? And then they don't actually do it. I think it's gonna keep more of those people away, and it's gonna bring more of people who are like, yeah. Let's do this.

Kronda Adair [00:21:57]:
Got it. So I think the probably the clients we have now are the best that we've had in, you know, probably 2 years just because I got clear. I kind of I'm at the end of a pivot where we've I've landed on, like, okay. This is what we're doing. So I think I'm more clear and then, also putting out the content that's like, hey. Did you know Airtable could do this? Did you know there's this mapping tool that, you know, could change your whole life? You can actually see what's happening with your business and your systems and your marketing. Like, actually putting those videos out and people going, oh, yeah. Okay.

Kronda Adair [00:22:31]:
That looks cool. I need that. You know? Yeah. It's it's easier for people to conceptualize and see themselves, like, in that system.

Andréa Jones [00:22:38]:
Yeah. And so when you say putting content out, I know you're on YouTube, TikTok. I see your stuff on Facebook all the time. What are your, like, go to platforms for creating content? You mentioned the podcast too.

Kronda Adair [00:22:49]:
Yeah. So I'm really trying to to go, you know, long form evergreen. So YouTube and podcasts are definitely gonna be my mainstays. I I got into TikTok late, and I'm so mad because I'm like, are we still gonna even have TikTok?

Andréa Jones [00:23:05]:
I know.

Kronda Adair [00:23:07]:
Because it's just this beautiful I think I I I had a business account, and then I realized you couldn't get the cool cool sounds like the music. And I was like, oh, I don't know what I gotta go back. Because so if you go to my TikTok, like, you'll get equal parts like me talking about whatever automation and me, like, duetting what is this feeling from Wicked. So just get into it. Like, it's

Andréa Jones [00:23:32]:
I mean, that's very much a

Kronda Adair [00:23:33]:
have range to follow me on TikToks. Well, it's

Andréa Jones [00:23:36]:
the it's the vibe. It's the vibe on TikTok. Like

Kronda Adair [00:23:39]:
So, I like threads. I've been really liking threads. Mhmm. So I I get around. You know? I'm putting I'm putting my stuff, out. But I really want I we had a we have a client who's off boarding now. They've been with us a year, and he found me on YouTube. And he binged a bunch of my YouTube videos, and he became a client 5 days later.

Kronda Adair [00:23:57]:
So I am all about, like, just be bingeable. You know? People are like, I don't know what content to create or I don't like creating content. I'm like, well, do you like chasing after clients every month? Because that's that's the alternative. You know? Right. I want people to be able to find me and go, oh, yeah. This bitch seems to know what she's doing. Like, let me go check this out.

Andréa Jones [00:24:17]:
Yeah. Same. Same. I love that. So would you say that, like, as far as, like, attracting new new people to you, is YouTube the main way that people find you, or what are some of the other traction strategies that you use?

Kronda Adair [00:24:30]:
I think YouTube and right now, I would say I'm I'm actively working on it being referrals, actually, because we had we had, about an 18 month period where we had some clients that were actively harmful to have as clients. And I won't go into the details, but I was like, that that's why I started Automation Club. This could be because I realized before when I had content boot camp, I was coaching those folks, and they were getting results, and then they asked me for tech help. And so the the done for you side was really kind of a secret menu, you know, back end thing. And then when I flipped that and I had done for you as, like, a, you know, flagship service, that meant anybody could could come and, you know, hire us, but they didn't necessarily have the relationship and the trust to allow us to get results or give us the time to help them get results. And so I was like, oh, I need a community component where people can come and, like, get to know me. Like, yes, I want new people. But, you know, if we're gonna sign up for a 6 month retainer, which isn't like that's not like a huge amount of time, but for some people, it's a big commitment.

Kronda Adair [00:25:42]:
And so if we're gonna do that, like, you need to be sure. So, like, come hang out. Come, you know, get some come ask your questions. Come peruse the con like, do whatever you need to do to be sure so that when we do make that commitment, we can actually move. And so I've just had clients that really have they they're ready, and we do some really amazing things incredibly quickly.

Andréa Jones [00:26:05]:
Yeah. I think the beautiful thing about what you just said too is having, referrals, because I think a lot of marketing feels very external. Like, we're always trying to get new people, call in new people, bring new people into our world, which is lovely. But I think the most powerful form of marketing is still word-of-mouth marketing. And to do word-of-mouth marketing, you have to actually, like, do good work and so that's what I do. A good job. Like, you have to do a good job to get people to refer you.

Kronda Adair [00:26:32]:
I mean, just one of them. Right?

Andréa Jones [00:26:34]:
But I am curious since you are, like, a systems automation person, do you have a way of of, prompting your clients, current past clients, to send you more business?

Kronda Adair [00:26:47]:
I'm working on it. You know, it's accomplished kids situation over here right now. Like, I'm not gonna lie. So, I'm actively working on that system because it has been one of my weak points. And because I've been, you know, I'm not the marketing automation girly. And so I've been in the world and steeped in, like, funnels and, you know, sequences and all those kinds of things. And so I just need to apply that knowledge and those systems to, you know, marketing to clients and past clients. And that's something that I have been talking about.

Kronda Adair [00:27:19]:
Like, even when someone has purchased your thing, especially if you're a service provider, you still have to sell them the thing. You know? You have to keep selling the thing. Because even my clients, I'm like, hey. Did you know, like, we could do this for you? Did you know that we could do this for you? Did you know that this resource is waiting for you in the resource vault? You know? So it's not just because people buy the thing doesn't mean you're done selling them the thing. You have to remind them, like, especially something like a membership. It's like getting people to keep engaged and, you know, come to office hours and things like that. So I'm actively shifting my marketing over to my clients, and I think that's gonna make a huge difference.

Andréa Jones [00:27:58]:
Yeah. A 100%. I think, I like to call this internal marketing versus external marketing.

Kronda Adair [00:28:03]:
I just think we don't

Andréa Jones [00:28:04]:
spend enough time, like, with our with our people, with our community, especially now. Like, this past year, like, 2024 was terrible for a lot of online business owners, and I think part of the reason is that we don't spend enough time with our with our people. We spend so much time trying to bring in new people, new new new all the time when we have a group of people who are like, I'll buy anything you put out.

Kronda Adair [00:28:24]:
Like, you know, like, let's pay attention

Andréa Jones [00:28:26]:
to that group, you know. Okay. Last question for you is, kind of like a, open ended question. I would love to know a marketing system or automation that you've implemented recently for yourself or for a client that you just loved. Recently for yourself or for a client that you just loved.

Kronda Adair [00:28:41]:
So I'll talk a little bit more about we did what we did that saved our client 15 hours a week. So this is a dog adventures companies. They take dogs out on 2 hour hikes. It's it's a company we use. I have 2 very active dogs. And so they were doing their their onboarding, everything manual. And there's one main operations person that kinda runs the day it's day to day of the business. And so we first kind of downloaded, like, everything that we're doing, and it's a it's a complex business model because it's contractors who are doing, like, all of the work and taking the dogs out and stuff, but they're independent contractors.

Kronda Adair [00:29:17]:
So if someone sends a request in, they have to say, hey. Who wants this job? And then a bunch of people raise their hands, and then they choose the person who has the most longevity with the company and the most credentials, like certifications. So they have this score based on these two things. And so they they were literally doing all this manually. Like, oh, let me go see who's you know? And we automated everything. So, like, someone sends a request, it automatically notifies the operations manager. She chooses which group of contractors. They instantly get the email.

Kronda Adair [00:29:54]:
They can click through to a form and see all of the information about that client and say, yes. I'm interested. And then after, like, a couple of days, the system then says, okay. Who has the highest score of the people who are interested? Okay. You win. Everybody else gets notified that they didn't get that client. And then the meet and greet process happens. And we put in reminders to to make sure, like, hey.

Kronda Adair [00:30:16]:
Did you schedule your meet and greet? They have to go and say, yep. It's scheduled. They have to fill out a form. So instead of, you know, Kim having to remind them and and keep that all in her head, like, oh, did so and so reached out to the client? Because if your contractor doesn't reach out to the client, now that's your reputation as a company that suffers. And so we've just taken that all of that out of our head and put it all into the robots where they are saying, like, hey. Go do the thing. Go do the thing. Oh, great.

Kronda Adair [00:30:42]:
You did the thing, and now it notifies the client. Hey. Your meet and greet is scheduled for this. It's gonna be in this location. Like, we just took that all away from them and just put it and we did it all with Airtable and fill out.

Andréa Jones [00:30:54]:
Okay. I'm obsessed with that, and that sounds amazing. I feel like more people just need to get on this automation train because not only does that sound like it's better for the business, but it also sounds like it's better for the clients as well. Like, they're getting a much smoother experience all around with, like, all of the reminders and notifications that their, dog walker person is getting. So I love that. I love that. And this And

Kronda Adair [00:31:20]:
it's better for the contractors too. They love it.

Andréa Jones [00:31:23]:
Keep your contractors for longer too. We all know finding good help is hard. It's hard. Okay. So this leads me to Automation Club because after hearing all this, I'm like, shoot. I gotta try this 3rd day trial. So tell us more about Automation Club and what we can expect.

Kronda Adair [00:31:39]:
Yeah. So Automation Club, it's hosted in circles, so there's a community that you can go into. You can meet, you know, other people in there. The backbone of Automation Club is the coworking. You know, all the all the business girlies out here have ADHD now, and nobody can get anything done unless they're body doubling. And, you know, I was like, people don't need more information. They need to actually get the shit done. And so we have 2 2 hour coworking sessions every month.

Kronda Adair [00:32:08]:
And they show up, and we have 4 25 minute sprints. So you like, what are you working on? Great. Let's do it. I set a timer, and then we check-in after each sprint. And then if people are struggling with anything, whether that's, like, a technical issue or strategy or they just have a question, we can hop into a Zoom breakout room, and we can sort that out. We usually can sort that out in 15 minutes, and then and, like, keep them moving. So if you if you think about the times where you've been like, I'm gonna do a thing, and then you hit the speed bump, and then that takes you off into a black hole of YouTube University or the comment section of Facebook or whatever, you know, you find yourself about to say, like, what's the best, like, whatever on a social media? That's a sign you should get in here. Because you can literally get advice from an expert.

Kronda Adair [00:32:59]:
Like, when I had my original retainer, it was 5 k a month. Like, to get the advice that I'm giving out for, you know, like, a $100 in change a month in automation club. So, and then the 30 day free trial is just that's just me saying RIP or excuses. Like, come on. You know? Like, you could come in. You could come to, you know, a couple of coworking sessions. You could like like, what is your excuse literally? So I I really resolved, like, I'm not getting involved in any of those tool discussions on social media because this is where I dispense my expertise. And I want us to normalize, stop asking the masses for this expert advice and start asking people who should I talk to? Who's the expert I should go to for social media, for automation, for whatever it is? Like, who's the qualified person that I should be asking this question, not just, like, letting any old person on threads.

Kronda Adair [00:34:03]:
You know, make your business decisions. Like, come on. So that's that's it in a nutshell. It's just where I show up, and I just help you get this shit done.

Andréa Jones [00:34:12]:
Oh my gosh. I love it. And if y'all see me in there, you'll know why because I went down a Google rabbit hole. So join join the automation club. The link for the 30 day trial is in the show notes, onlinedrea.com/340, and all of the links that we mentioned today. Thank you so much for being on the show. This was so fun.

Kronda Adair [00:34:30]:
Thank you so much. I feel like it's like, I hit a milestone. Like, I made it.

Andréa Jones [00:34:35]:
I love it. I love it. And thank you to your listener for tuning in to another episode of the Mindful Marketing podcast. Coming up next in the Lab, we have our LinkedIn challenge. January 27th through 31st, we are doing our 7th annual LinkedIn challenge. Join us because this year, I'm switching it up, doing something a little different with my little characters. Y'all know I love little characters. I'm having too much fun with it.

Andréa Jones [00:34:59]:
So join. It is free for a limited time. If you are in the Lab, of course, we have way more support for you in there as well. I'm doing audits of every single Lab member's LinkedIn account. Last year, it was over 30 and it took me a very long time and I'm hoping for more this year. So join me there. That's all for today. I'll see you next week.

Andréa Jones [00:35:17]:
Bye for now.