Are your students meeting their goals through your program? Maybe you’re not even sure! In today’s episode, Ashley Pendergraft joins us to share how you can optimize your program promise to measure the results of your students’ successes. Listen in as she highlights how you can automate with Airtable, gather data, and get the most information from your students!
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Guest Bio:
Ashley Pendergraft is an automations and Airtable expert, who has helped hundreds of coaches move off of spreadsheets and into streamlined & automated systems. As a neurodivergent business owner, she knows the power of systems to scale your group program & business on part-time hours, without sacrificing client experience or burning out. She runs the group program, Systems Over Stress, and her agency supports coaches with Airtable builds.
If you’ve tried setting up your Dubsado or Honeybook account, yet aren’t actually utilizing all of the features it offers, I want to invite you to check out The CRM Blueprint. My course includes templates for all of the forms, emails, and workflows that you need to get paid in one easy step. Ready to maximize your use of Dubsado or Honeybook, enroll in The CRM Blueprint today! Use the code PODCAST for 10% off.
Here are the highlights…
1:07 – Meet Ashley
2:50 – The Importance of Niching Down in Business
4:24 – Refining Program Promises for Better Client Results
12:55 – Gathering Baseline Data for Measurable Goals
19:45 – Maximizing Client Engagement with Automated Tracking
20:24 – The Power of Milestones in Client Progress
20:45 – Analyzing Program Data for Better Outcomes
21:06 – Leveraging Airtable for Course Management
21:19 – Module Completion Tracking
22:24 – Customizing Program Timelines for Client Success
25:19 – Automating Engagement with Airtable’s Internal Automation
28:07 – Expanding Services: From Group Programs to One-on-One Coaching
29:46 – The Shift to Agency Model
33:22 – Embracing the Complexity of Airtable for Business Efficiency
33:56 – The Journey of Systems Over Stress
Mentioned in this Episode
2 Simple Onboarding Form Tweaks To Make To Get Better Client Results
Connect with Ashley
Ashley’s Group Program: Systems Over Stress
Instagram: instagram.com/systemsoverstress
Youtube: youtube.com/channel/UCGRwkVQjYP_ErgIgs7n9YeQ
Podcast: open.spotify.com/show/12iZ4bd1q6FELAVuO1Mpch
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Business First Creatives Podcast. We’ve got another returning guest today, the amazing Ashley Pendergraft of Systems Over Stress. Now, she was on the podcast 18 months ago at the time of this recording. Guys, that’s a long time. And I feel like she’s running a completely new business than the first time that I talked to her.
Ashley, good morning and welcome to the podcast.
Ashley Pendergraft: so excited to be back. I can’t believe we’ve been friends for that long. Like,
Colie: I know, right?
Ashley Pendergraft: than that. I’m like, I’ve known you for years now.
Colie: Yes, isn’t it exciting that we can say that? So guys, this is Airtable Ashley. I know I’ve had quite a few Ashleys on my podcast that talk about Airtable, but this is Airtable Ashley. And we’re finally going to actually talk about Airtable this time. If you would like to go back and listen to her original podcast episode, it was great.
It was episode 12. And in that time, we talked about how she had put a complete pause in her business in order to, like, rethink her offers and what she was doing for other people. And today we’re going to kind of talk about how she’s taken that 1 step forward in what she believes is the most important pivot that you can make in your business related to your students and clients.
Is that accurate, Ashley? Absolutely.
Ashley Pendergraft: I’d say so. That’s
Colie: Yeah,
Ashley Pendergraft: prepared, the research is here. Professional podcaster,
Colie: I mean, you know, I, I do try.
So
Ashley Pendergraft: there are so many Systems Airtable Ashley’s now. Like, we’re all,
Colie: I know
Ashley Pendergraft: the TV show Recess that used to be out. And they used, there was like the Bullies. There was like a pack of five, but they were called the Ashley’s.
And there’s only, they’re only, all their first names had to be Ashley. It’s like, there’s like Systems Airtable Ashley’s crew. And I think you’ve had all of us on.
Colie: I have, um, Ashley Tyndall was recently on. So yes,
I’ve had all of you guys on. So Ashley, first of all, let’s talk about why you have made the pivot to start focusing on helping people create measurable goals inside their business and what that means to you.
Ashley Pendergraft: Yeah, I think I, so I’ve been teaching people how to use Airtable for about like three and a half years now. And something that I realized is that Airtable can do so much and it’s as a business owner, like, We’re taught to niche. I have found like beauty in niching. And so I used to teach Airtable for anybody.
Give me your spreadsheet. Doesn’t matter who you are. If you’re an architect, I don’t care. I’ll turn it into Airtable. And slowly over time, I’ve, I’ve niched down further and further. And every time I do that, I ask myself like, what is the one thing Airtable can do better than any, anything else? I used to teach project management outside of Airtable, but like Asana and ClickUp, you know, those things are project management tools.
So like, I, that’s not a hill I’m going to die on, but as I just continued to refine and get simpler and simpler in my group programs and my offerings, the thing that really, it kept coming back was Airtable’s ability to track your clients and track your clients success. so I know, you know, even onboarding, automated onboarding, offboarding, we’ve got Dubsado, we’ve got HoneyBook.
Some of those things can do that. But what Airtable still does above and beyond is track and measure your client results with the ability to, you know, track their engagement, track their forms, all of those things. And so, as I started to think more and more about what is the true that if you have, Everything else handled in other tech.
What is the one thing at your table you need it for? And it was tracking, tracking your client results. So we’ve been really focusing on getting people up and running with client results, trackers, and all of those things for both their group programs and their one on one clients. And it’s been amazing to watch people’s like growth and progress with that.
Colie: So, as an example, because I feel like some people might not have known what your program promise was originally, and then what your program promise is now. So, can you tell me what it was before and what it is now, just to give us like a baseline of what you mean by really narrowing down what your program promise or your course promise is?
Ashley Pendergraft: Yes, so my group program is called Systems Over Stress and before which I’ve also like to be fair I’ve had like 40, 000 launches with this program promise like it existed. It was great, but there’s always room to refine It was like Systems Over Stress helps you automate every part of your group program in Airtable like every part
Colie: every part.
Ashley Pendergraft: Every part is a very big to make and something that when I was looking into like, why, why does my program still feel hard for people?
Like, why are people still not getting the results? Like, I would, we all can look at that and like, see that there is growth, you know, for us to get our clients better results. When I was sitting down, I was like, Oh, yeah. I remember smart goals, which we can talk about, like the specific measurable actual results bound, like results oriented and time bound or something.
And when I was thinking about those smart goals and how I used to like plan my goals, that’s not a goal. Like, that’s a bad goal. I’m going to, I’m going to manage everything in Airtable. Okay, and then I also didn’t say like, it’s a 12 month, it was a six month program, but people didn’t know, can they do it in six weeks, does it gonna take the entire six months, so it was ambiguous for them of how long it’s gonna take for them to complete it, which also caused extra frustration.
So when I just saw like all of these like holes in the program promise, I was like, wow, we can refine this so much. And when I kind of ran it through, almost like creating a smart goal for my students,
was really able to clean that up. So now instead of saying we help you manage every aspect of your group program inside of Airtable, we now say Systems Over Stress helps you set up an automated onboarding, offboarding, and re signs process within 30 days.
So you can set up like three client results tracking systems to get your clients like double the results. Like lots of,
Colie: So specific Ashley. Yes.
Ashley Pendergraft: things. Because what will happen, Everything is a moving goalpost, manage everything in the air. It’s like, okay, if you add a new feature, then inherently not everything is now managed in Airtable.
So really being able to run it through that. So when we did that for our own program, I got so much more clarity on like how to sell it, who, how to talk about it, how many emails, like the emails I could write, because it was so much more specific. And I was like, okay, if this help was helpful for me, I bet it will be helpful for our clients to clean up their, their program promises as well.
Colie: Yeah. So let’s talk about that program promise because you just said how to automate onboarding, offboarding and re signing your clients within 30 days. Clearly there’s an onboarding process that someone can check off
and an offboarding process that someone can check off and a resigning process that someone can check off.
And there’s the time goal of 30 days where you either do those three things within 30 days or you don’t. But at least then you get to say 70 percent of my students get through all three of these processes within 30 days. And
of course, Airtable comes in to collect that data. So. Looking at what you’ve done with your own program, how do you think that someone should approach it if they’re like you and they’re like, okay, I don’t know what, maybe they don’t have a course promise at all, or maybe they have a course promise and it’s just not specific enough.
What advice would you give to someone who’s looking to refine their own course promise before they can even set any of those measurable goals that we can start to track inside of Airtable?
Ashley Pendergraft: Yep, that’s a great question, because for me, almost all of us, I bet, if you look at your program, you’re going to realize that there is much inside of it, or it’s not guided. And so what I looked at is we had, we said, manage every part of your program. We included like launch tracking in that sales tracking in that we just like had a lot in there.
So I had to really look at the program and say, what is the core result that like, what is the most important result? What is the one that people are asking, like, like are raving about the most? Like, what’s the thing, what’s the one thing that we can, we can pull out and market because What will happen to all of us is we put so much work and effort into creating these lessons and we’re like, well, wow, we don’t want to strip this program of everything you don’t have to do that.
And I think that’s 1 of the biggest things to know is like, when you’re refining your offer, you don’t have to throw everything away or start over. You just have to move things around
Colie: Yeah.
Ashley Pendergraft: And so for us, we have setting up your automated onboarding, operating and re sign. So we pulled. We actually, we actually gated everything that wasn’t that, so that’s a
Colie: Mm hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: middle ground.
If you’re like, I don’t want to get rid of this, just say, this is the result that the program promises. Finish this part, and then you can open up to all of the other things that are
Colie: Yeah.
Ashley Pendergraft: for you. So you don’t have to get rid of it, but you can gate it. So I think that’s, that’s something that’s important to keep in mind.
alleviate the pressure of having to redo your entire program, but really look at the program and see what’s the one skill that you can teach people that can, like, guarantee a transformation. The transformation that everybody needs. For us, everybody had a group program, but not everybody launched.
So it’s like, okay, They, we don’t, the launch hub isn’t the thing then because some people are at Evergreen. So we
Colie: Mm hmm. Mm
Ashley Pendergraft: you know, be able to make those things bonuses, and really focusing what is like the one core result that you want to give people. And you can say, what’s the thing that you’re most excited to talk about in your marketing?
What’s the thing that you can easily get the most testimonials for? What’s the thing your students love the most? Pick that thing and kind of just reorient, kind of like moving the Titanic, like
Colie: hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: messaging, change your marketing, move things around in your course platform to really highlight that as the result.
Colie: I mean, and I’ve never really thought about it as you giving them a stick, like you’re gating everything else and you’re saying, no, this is what I believe you need to do first. If you do these things, I will give you the other things.
It gives people a lot of motivation to do those core things because I don’t know if you were struggling with this and systems over stress, but I certainly struggle with this in my own program before I kind of revamped it.
And that was sometimes people would skip around. And I made videos, actually, I sent emails that said, listen to me. The 1 thing that I need you to do is not skip. You have to do module 1, even if you have been a Dubsado or a HoneyBook user for years. I need you to go through that module and make sure that everything is done.
It might not take you as long as someone who’s brand new, but you have to do it. And then I was like, you know, module two builds up, module three builds on module two and module four builds on module three. I’m like, once you get those four core modules done, I don’t care what you do. You are free to do anything that’s in the bonus module five.
But if you skip, You will come ask me questions about why this doesn’t make sense. And I will have to tell you that’s because it was covered in a lesson in module two. Did you do module two? And they’re like, no. And I’m like, okay. like, Yes.
Ashley Pendergraft: are you telling me what I should, like, what I shouldn’t, shouldn’t do? And like, because I know what’s going to get the better results, because for us, our gated content, it’s called the Client Results Club.
So that’s after you set up your automated onboarding, offering, re sign. You get how to set up a support ticketing system. Like you get to do the fun things. Those fun things are a little more advanced in Airtable. So it’s actually, it’s a lot helpful for me to see. trainings are better because they already have the foundational systems knowledge.
Like you’re talking about, like they know what a linked record field is by now because they’ve set up those things in the previous lessons. And if they just went to the, the support ticketing system, which is way shinier and way cooler than like an automated onboarding, they’re like, I don’t know how to do this.
Airtable is too complicated. Ashley’s bad at teaching and like all, all of those things. So it’s helpful to kind of. Have those foundational blocks and be really strategic about what you’re getting and what you’re not getting. I don’t like the like weekly drip because I’m like, if you want to do this all on a weekend, that’s fine, but you got to get all of it done before you get to unlock the rest of the fun stuff.
Colie: Absolutely. So let’s move on. Cause I heard you say this on one of your podcast episodes, which by the way, if you guys are not listening to her podcast, it is linked in the show notes. It is amazing.
But when you talked about how you get the baseline. for then what you can do to measure your students progress going forward.
That was like a big aha moment. So what is it that you recommend that everyone do in order to get baseline data on your students so that you can then measure their progress as they go through your program?
Ashley Pendergraft: Yes. So this is where Airtable comes into play and is like fantastic. So once you have your clear program promise for me, it was setting up your automated onboarding, offboarding, resign. want to think about like, what do you want your case studies to look like at the end? And for us, you always need to know, like, before systems over stress, I was like this.
Now I’m like
Colie: Mm
Ashley Pendergraft: So you have to capture that before part. And you want to capture that before part when they’re still kind of in that pain point, right? Because, like, it’s just more powerful than they’re like, oh, I remember, like, they’ll, it won’t, it won’t be as, it won’t be as powerful if they, if
Colie: hmm. Mm
Ashley Pendergraft: and a lot of those are like sleeping on the data that we have inside of our onboarding forms and they are not as strategic as they could be. We ask like, What’s your Instagram handle and what’s your like mailing address in case I want to send you something? I mean ever send them anything like it’s just like there’s a lot of richness that can be inside of Your onboarding form and people love to fill out onboarding forms I found so I always recommend look at your onboarding form and make sure you’re getting that baseline data to capture every before aspect of your Program promise.
So for us, it’s literally saying, on a scale of one to five, how automated is your onboarding? How automated is your offboarding? Do you have a re sign? What is hard about that right now? Really asking those questions there so you can, one, get a sense of where they’re at, but then when you have Airtable and all of your form data is in one central spot, you can see, okay, 70 percent of my people have a two out of five, onboarding automated
Colie: Woo.
Ashley Pendergraft: Then when they graduate, they have a five. So you get to start to really play and analyze that data when it’s all in one central spot. And so that’s like the best thing you can do. I have a whole podcast episode on like the five different ways you can audit your onboarding form.
Colie: Mm hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: a very nerdy thing, which I think you’re, you, your people can handle is field types are really important for this.
You don’t want just big long field type texts where
Colie: Yes.
Ashley Pendergraft: novels. You want to try to get things that are like single select or number or currency. So that way you can really play with those and analyze that data in a really robust way.
Colie: And guys, that episode is the one that I was referring to. It will be linked in the show notes. So the other thing that I really got from you, Ashley, was I listened to that episode and I was like, okay, I’m doing part of what she’s saying, but I could do a much better job. So then I sat down and actually wrote down to get a baseline of like where my students are in their CRM journey, because everybody’s like, oh, it’s just, it’s hard.
Okay. But what’s hard.
And exactly what have you tried to set up before you come into my program? Like that really helps me with my marketing messaging. So not just are you creating a baseline so that you can then measure your goals as your students work through the program. You now have language that they are all using before they come into your program to help you market that program.
I don’t think that I can emphasize enough the richness that you can get from these onboarding questionnaires besides, Oh, what’s your first and last name, Instagram handle, email, all of that. Like that is just so basic. I feel like everyone should just pause this recording and go look at your onboarding form, go listen to Ashley’s podcast, and then come back and listen to the rest of this conversation.
Ashley Pendergraft: It’s just it’s small tweaks of it’s just small tweaks that can really change and impact your entire business and how you market and how you serve your clients. I think something that’s interesting that I’m playing with now is that it’s not only what they’re telling you, but it’s also what they’re not telling you.
For example, a lot of the people in my. group program. They are established group program founders, which what that means to me is that I’m not talking to the new group program founders. So I could say this is just for established group program founders, or I can say, like, what’s the messaging that would so I could get more of those type of people in here.
Colie: Yes.
Ashley Pendergraft: I’m capturing the established people because those established people understand the pain point of like, they understand automated on board. They’re like, I want that people that are just starting. They’re not currently like worried about onboarding a couple of clients. So now I’m messaging for my next launch, by the way, when I, when I did change this messaging, I had a 75, 000 launch, which was the biggest launch I’d ever had.
So
Colie: Yes.
Ashley Pendergraft: 40 K launch was great. And the, ambiguous program promise, but when I really narrowed it down, it just, it almost doubled, which was wild. But now it’s like, okay, how can I message to the people that are have one not no clients yet? How can I tell them like tracking their client results is equally as important important and the automated message might not totally land for them So it’s kind of figuring out how do I make it?
So it’s it’s really inclusive for everybody regardless of what stage they’re at without like diluting the program promise. Mm
Colie: Yeah, because I feel like when you get those really newbie course creators, they’re more worried about their marketing. They’re more worried about actually bringing people into the program instead of what they’re going to do when they get there, which of course you and I would totally agree. That’s, that’s not what they should be doing, but I do think that it helps them focus.
And so like saying things like, you know, you’re preparing yourself for your biggest launch initially, like
you still need to put these things in place to make your life easier. So, Let’s talk about actually measuring the goals, though, Ashley, because, you
know, that’s why you’re here. So, we’ve talked about refining your onboarding form and we’ve talked about Airtable is really great at, like, keeping all this data together, but, like, what are some kinds of things that we should have in place in order to measure our goals from our course program?
Ashley Pendergraft: Yes, so everybody should have an error table base that has a client list. It has a list of all of your clients. So first name, last name, email, that’s like their little client profile record. Regardless of whether you’re interested in automating your onboarding, offboarding or not, you need that. And then you’ll have your onboarding form that is connected to that client record.
So the next thing that you would need once you gather the baseline data is you need to track their progress throughout the program. So depending on your program promise, There’s kind of two different results tracker forms that you can use. One is kind of like a rolling results tracker and one is just kind of one and done milestone.
So I’ll give you an example of both, depending on what your program would be. client, Gina has a program called six figure saver. She helps her clients save six figures. That is a rolling result that every time, literally they move money into their savings account, they submit a form. And so what that looks like then is she literally has a form and there’s an art to getting people to creating a culture where people want to fill out this form, her folks.
Love to fill this out. She is always updating, like she gets to see these rolling totals across all of her clients, which is amazing. It’s Ashley submits a form that she saved $600. That form is connected to her client profile, and that’s gonna start to automatically sum it up. What Airtable can do as well with them is say, Hey Ashley, congrats on submitting, the $600 savings win.
As a reminder, you have submitted $20,000 so far. You have, you know, 80,000 left to go. Keep going Those numbers. are getting automatically calculated and put into this email. So it’s like, not just sending a thanks for filling out the form. Keep going. They are, you’re tracking for them, which can be really helpful in giving them that momentum.
So whether it’s finances, weight, anything that’s a numerical, that rolling results tracker is really important. The other way you can do it is, this is more for me, is our The milestones. So did
Colie: Me too. But
Ashley Pendergraft: So you fill it out three times. You fill it out when you complete your onboarding, your offboarding, and your re sign.
You could technically combine them into one, but basically it’s like, did you do this? Yes or no? So those are kind of the two different ways. But once you. that filled out and all that data is centralized. Then you can see did they join? When did they complete this form? What’s the average amount of time between the, you know, completing the program promise to joining, you can just look at it and analyze the data in a bunch of different ways.
So it’s literally, it’s just a form and it’s just getting people excited to fill out that form. But once you have all that data, it’s just really incredible.
Colie: Airtable itself can help you remind people that they should fill out the forms. It can thank them when they fill out the form. And you know this about me. When I joined your program, I had no milestone forms in my, in my course at all. And I put them in, And then I noticed that one person completed my entire course in 24 hours, and I would have never known that she had done the entire course in 24 hours if she had not been filling out her module
forms.
And of course, that led to me knowing that she would make a great case study. I mean, it gave me the, Oh my gosh, well, you can really get this course done in just like two days if you’re really motivated, but really on average,
it takes people 10 days. Or, you know, I also have a 30 day like lesson plan.
Calendar that you can go on, but like you don’t know what your students are doing unless you ask them and you track it.
It’s got to be both.
Ashley Pendergraft: Yeah, I saw somebody recently. She she’s promoting her course right now, and they have different tracks, but she had like a retreat weekend week weekend retreat track. And it was like,
Colie: Mm
Ashley Pendergraft: 10 hours of work that you could do over the course of 2 days. Here’s the modules. I just thought it was such a cool way to be like, oh, right.
Our people do want to like. Nerd out on a weekend or like do all of it in 24 hours. So even though you’re telling them do it in 30 days,
Colie: hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: different ways people do it. I think something that we also do in our onboarding form is we give people the option to opt in or out of the timeframe.
Colie: Yes.
Ashley Pendergraft: are, are creating their program promise, they get really like squeamish of like, Oh, well, like what if they don’t do it in their 30 days? Cause life happens and they’re going to feel bad. That’s fine. You don’t have to like, it’s not a bad thing if they don’t finish it in that time frame, but you’re just giving people kind of like an average milestone to work towards.
And if they decide, you know, I’m taking this, I bought this program, but I’m going to do it in Q3 instead of Q1,
Colie: hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: can have them like opt out of kind of the timeframe promise. So you can exclude them from that, but there’s a lot of
Colie: From your data. Mm hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: Yeah.
Colie: I mean, and that’s not only helpful for them, because it doesn’t feel like you’re shoving it down their throat. Like, hey, it’s been 10 days and you haven’t done anything in
this course, but for yourself, if you know up front that these people have no interest in completing your course in 30 days, maybe they bought it because you launched it and they’re going to wait the 60 days until they start.
Maybe it would be more helpful for you to know that so that then when they do fill out the first. You know, course module form, whatever it is that it’s called in your program, then you can start the clock then to see how long it takes them to go through the course, whether you use that data in your average amount of time that it takes or not, it’s good to know who comes in with the intention of trying to meet the time data, or if they bought it with, you know, they didn’t care how long it takes.
They just wanted the information in the program.
Ashley Pendergraft: And that’s something that I love about Airtable and its flexibility and capacity is like, you might not know the people listening, like how to build this, but just know like that you can build this and Airtable is very exciting and really like with these systems, any question you have about your program or about your clients can really be answered.
And I think that that’s very powerful. So getting so granular on like, What type of person, if you’re asking them in onboarding, are you full time? Are you part time? What type of people are completing the program in these certain timeframes? You can really slice and and mix up the data and really in really interesting ways.
So that’s what I love about it is that you can really just get really granular in any question you want to ask about your program. You don’t have to compile a ton of reports. You just get to like look at the data instead of like exporting CSVs and you know cross referencing people and all that.
Colie: I mean, that is the beauty of Airtable though, right? You set it up one time. Any question that you have, you can probably set up a process to get it answered by your students. And then you never have to do it again. So if you’re trying to figure out this one piece of data, once you set it up for one person, you can make it a view.
And then anytime you want to see that data about any one of your other students, it’s just there. And it’s waiting for you. And like you said, the automatic calculations, the average number of days, hours that it’s taking someone to do something is automatically updated every time someone fills out a form.
Right? So you’re not going in there with your calculator in order to write down every single person and kind of add it up. I mean, gosh, it’s giving me the heebie jeebies, especially with tax season around the
corner.
Ashley Pendergraft: and Colie mentioned, Colie mentioned this, but we just kind of like gloss over these things now because we’re so used to them, but she mentioned, oh, if someone doesn’t fill out the form, you can check in with them. Like, if
Colie: Hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: fill out your tracker form, there’s internal air table automation.
So you can say, if it’s been 30 days since the last time they filled out this form, them an email checking in on them and like opening the door for some engagement. So I really love that that aspect too, especially as your group program grows, you’re not going to be able to keep track of everybody’s progress in your head.
So if you know, these are the checkpoints I like to have. If someone kind of ghosting the program. I want to send them a quick email. Like you don’t have to remember to do that. Airtable will do it for you. And then when they respond, then you can follow up with them and have that like human to human conversation.
But just those automated little engagement touch points are really great and Airtable makes it so easy to do based on any type of little condition you want to them and fill it out their onboarding form within seven days of joining. Like literally any touch point you want to have with them. Airtable can help you automate that first step.
Colie: I mean, speaking of things that other people don’t know, we live in Airtable and so I don’t really think about the things that are like really exciting for people to know. So Ashley, besides what we’ve already talked about, is there like one thing that people are always like, Oh my God, Airtable will do that?
Okay. Sign me up. Like what, what’s something that everyone gets excited about?
Ashley Pendergraft: That’s a great question. I do. Everybody does get excited about the ability to automated checking emails, like, honestly, that part where they just feel that and automated payment plan projections
Colie: Yes.
Ashley Pendergraft: people see that they lose their minds. So what that is, is we all have those, like, spreadsheets of, like, when you get a new payment plan, you kind of have the months at the top and the names at the bottom and you’re just like manually putting it.
So you can see your monthly recurring revenue, your M. R. R. got rid of those spreadsheets like two years ago, have not looked back, um, but what Airtable does is when you get your first payment come in, it will automatically create future projected payments based on, you know, 30 days out, depending on your payment plan structure.
So you can see in real time when you get a new student, you can go check out, we call it a sales hub, you can go check out your sales hub and you can see that your projected payments for the, for the next five months, six months, whatever. And it just gives you so much peace about what. Your revenue goals need to be
Colie: Yeah.
Ashley Pendergraft: great.
I’ve got 10k guaranteed coming in. How do I make up that deficit? You get to see that in real time automatically people are always blown away that that’s possible
Colie: I mean, I wasn’t using it for the longest because I didn’t have a payment plan in my course. And then when I created one, I was like, okay, Ashley, um, now I need this. Can you come do this for me, please? And thank you. So actually let’s talk about that. Because the first time that I had you on this podcast, you had shut down all of your individual one to one work and you were all in on the group program.
And now you’re like a full blown agency again. So tell me about what it’s like to kind of niche down to a course program and why you decided to like, kind of come back out and offer one to one work again.
Ashley Pendergraft: Yes, so I did so I used to do vip days learn from the best jordan gill loved like vip days absolutely changed my business I have ADHD, so it was really helpful for me to like be all in with somebody and then hop out, but just there was going to always be a cap on my time with that, and I
Colie: Mm hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: only wanted to work X amount of days, and I never really figured out exactly how to Airtable work was very custom.
So it was like, I always thought I could do it in a certain amount of time, but then it was like, add a little bit more time. It just, it never felt like super clean to me.
Colie: Mm hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: so they always felt kind of custom and bespoke. And so I knew I needed to either totally rework that, which is something we’ve done now, or just go all in on my group program.
And I just felt like an easier path to like, with. Having the group program, um, just with someone like, you know, when you have a couple of bad clients, you get a little burnt and you’re like,
Colie: Mm hmm. Hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: Intentionally paused my group my VIP to focus on the group program and I didn’t want to split my time So I was saying no to a lot of the A lot of VIP day work, a lot of one on one work, and I just focused on the group program and really worked on refining that.
And that was beautiful. I heard a co coach that helps me with that program, Katie May. She was awesome. And then. One, one of our launches, one of my coaches, said, Hey, a really great bonus would be if you guys set up the sales hub for somebody, like if you were able to do it. And so it was kind of meta, so it was, it was kind of couched.
So if you bought the group program, we would do 1 on 1 work for you. And that was like a really, really popular bonus that I actually didn’t deliver. My team member did. And that was like, I just accidentally become an agency, but I just. saw the path to, I think, as service providers, we have a belief that like, no one can do it like us and no one’s going to want, not like, they want me.
And when Katie Mae was able to like, crank all those out and everybody liked them, I was like, Oh. I don’t have to be the one to deliver these. Actually, right now, as I’m recording this podcast, Katie Mae is doing a VIP day for, like, she’s doing the VIP day that I am not doing. Like, I am now an agency. I’m doing this type of work while she is running those,
VIP days, which is, which is really cool.
So that was kind of, that started, uh, last January. We did that. And so it’s been a year of, you know, myself up to agency world and VIP days and trusting that I have the systems and team in place to really deliver those in a way that can be good for me and my clients and my team members.
Colie: and I mean, I personally think that it’s a really awesome thing to do on the back end of a group program or a course because you’re getting people in. I don’t want to say what the promise of DIY, but some people really do think they’re going to jump into a group program and they have the best of intentions, but life gets in the way.
They either don’t have the capacity anymore, or they feel like their time is more valuable. doing some other activity in their business. And can I just pay someone to take this off of my list? And that’s why I think it’s so great that you’re offering this one to one service that could potentially be.
You joined my group program. You haven’t gotten your offboarding, onboarding and resigning done in 30 days. Can I help you check that off your list in my agency?
And so I know that’s not what you originally intended, but I do think that it’s like a really great back end offer for someone who’s like, I want to see if I can do it first myself.
And if I can’t, I can still hire the expert who was teaching me how to do it. To just do it for me and I can go, you know, get a few additional clients to pay for it.
Ashley Pendergraft: exactly. That’s something we, so we now have a front end agency offer, which is a done for you sales hub setup. I’ve sent one email about it, so not a lot of people know about it yet, but
Colie: Mm hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: it’s because everybody, a sales hub is relatively. Straightforward to set up,
Colie: Yes.
Ashley Pendergraft: there is a little bit of maintenance.
If a zap breaks, like it’s, it’s sales data and it’s numbers and we can do it in our sleep and it takes people
Colie: Long time.
Ashley Pendergraft: out and set up and make sure it’s, it’s working well. So were like, Oh, this is a really easy, it’s an easy thing for us to deliver on. It’s easy thing for us to delegate.
There’s a right way or there’s a wrong way to set it up. Like there’s no ambiguity. Like there isn’t with like
Colie: Mm hmm.
Ashley Pendergraft: and all of that. And so, we now are doing a three month service where it’s just a thousand dollars a month for 3000. And you get a. hub that’s completely set up custom to you and your checkout platform.
But then also we maintain it and make sure that your reports are up to
Colie: Extra time.
Nice.
Ashley Pendergraft: Yeah. So that’s really exciting. So if there’s just, cause I, I get people who pay me 500 to sit in, sit in with them for an hour to troubleshoot their sales hubs, zaps that are breaking. And I’m like, yeah, I’m like, there’s an easy way for us to do this.
Like, let us handle this part. Like you just look at the reports and we’ll just make sure that the automations running correctly and everything like that. it’s been helpful this year. I’m really stepping into owning the fact that. These things are hard. Like, I, there’s a balance of like, it’s easy.
Anyone can set it up. It was like, no, it’s a skill that I, it comes very easily to me. And it’s really hard for other people. And like other things are hard for me that I’m like, please let me pay you to do it. I’m like,
Colie: Let me pay you to do this.
What can I, what can I not? Yeah.
Ashley Pendergraft: this for you. I don’t need to convince you that it’s easy just because it’s easy for like, you can pay me to do the easy thing for me.
That is hard for you. That’s okay. So I’m like really trying to like step into that, that idea this year.
Colie: Okay. I mean, Ashley, I feel like this was a really good follow up to your previous podcast episode, because I felt really guilty that we talked that whole time the first time, and we didn’t talk about really anything Airtable. But if someone listening to this is like, Hey, I’ve got a group program, I would love to know more about Ashley’s program and getting these things set up.
Cause guys, refining your course promise is a must. Like I can’t tell you how great it is to be able to do that and be able to say, yes, my students met this goal or no, they didn’t. But Ashley, if people want to hear more about systems over stress, where can they find you on the internet?
Ashley Pendergraft: Yeah. So Instagram is kind of the best little portal. That’s just at systems over stress. You’ll know like what my upcoming launches are, what’s going on. Uh, and I’ve also been really into threads recently. I’m getting into
Colie: Okay.
Ashley Pendergraft: but you can, you know, you can go to Instagram and find threads and then of course there’s a link in bio, we have an email list.
all those fun things. So that’s definitely the best place. And then my podcast as well. I mean, you can absolutely, you do not need to pay any money to refine your program promise. It’s like that part, you can like listen to a podcast episode, clean that up. Look at your onboarding form. You can do all those things just from like the free resources that I have.
But then when you’re like, okay, let’s start tracking this stuff.
Colie: Yes.
Ashley Pendergraft: like, that’s when we can start to work together. Really do some of that fun stuff. I mean, inside of my program too, of course we audit your program promise and we do all of that stuff, but there’s so many free resources that you can just sit and nerd out, and, and refine that.
And then when you’re ready to get tracking into the nitty gritty systems that we can, we can play.
Colie: I mean, and then Ashley can be your back pocket person where you’re like, Ashley, I love you. Help me
fix this. I, I, I’ve decided this is not a, not a hill I’ll die on. All right, Ashley, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Um, let’s not make it 18 months again.
Okay.
Okay.
Ashley Pendergraft: We gotta do more online too.
Colie: All right, everyone. That’s it for this episode.
See you next time.
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