This is a transcript of episode 52 for the OMGrowth podcast
I’m Lanie Lamarre and even though I had a cold at the time of recording this episode, my heart had the warm and fuzzies because I had the pleasure of speaking to Jordan Gill from Systems Saved Me about how mega-aligned she is to the future of marketing. If you’ve listened to other episodes of the podcast, you’ve heard me say that if you want to stay relevant with all the changes happening in digital marketing, you’re going to have to start interacting with people like a human… and when I heard Jordan was collaborating on a solution for that, I had to talk to her and today’s episode is that talk.
Lanie Lamarre:
I received an email from you. And the subject line was “I built a software 😱” and I was like, “what is she up to?” And I read the email. I’m like, oh, Jordan acquired a new skill. She’s clairvoyant now. So, uh, tell us about the software and then we’ll get into why it makes you clairvoyant.
Jordan Gill:
Oh my goodness. Yeah. It’s uh, it was quite the announcement. Some people were shocked, some people were not. Um, cause they’re like “you are a systems person.” I was shocked that I got into it, but having the business name Systems Saved Me, I, I guess it was that part of it should have, I should have seen it coming, but you and I are very similar, Lanie, in the sense at, you know, we geek out about systems. We love software and tools and all those things. And alongside of that, the reason that we love that so much is because the power of business really comes in like real life and connecting with people and talking and having really amazing connections and relationships. But if you’re so busy doing all the, you know, admin stuff in your business, or God forbid like sending one-off contracts or whatever else, like you’re missing out on what I believe to be the joy of business, which is the connecting and relationships part. So I was like, well, gosh, I guess I am the person – or one of the three people, cause it’s a partner ship – to bring this into the world and to make sure that people recognize and realize in the grand scheme of algorithms and cookies and craziness, that we’re just getting back to how business has always meant to be, which is connecting and serving from your highest purpose instead of, you know, click clacking behind your computer, click
Lanie Lamarre:
“Click-clacking behind your computer.” Yeah. We all spend way too much time staring at a screen. The connection part of it seems like a missed opportunity, but you’re making it easier for people to tap into that opportunity with this software that you build, yeah? What is the software doing exactly?
Jordan Gill:
Yes, so there is, you know, 2022 Trends – so I do feel very clairvoyant – is that, you know, social selling is a thing. Meaning that people are selling and connecting and messaging through social media, whether that’s Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, all the things, um, instead of text messaging, email, not to say you don’t have an text message and email, but there’s software that’s already doing those things. And no one has capitalized on the social media selling aspect of things. And that’s really the only place I was really selling for my group program that I run for my business. And it got messy, if I’m being honest. Yeah, because it’s really hard to track how many conversations are happening and whatnot in the main inbox feed of any of the social media platforms. So we are taking the social media conversations and placing them in a pipeline format that will allow you to know how many conversations are in each phase of your sales process or your funnel.
So how many people are you talking to right now? Who’ve downloaded your freebie and you know, they need to go into the next step of registering for your webinar and then, okay. How many people have registered for the webinar? And they have attended the live webinar or, or watched a past webinar. Okay. They’re in this list and then moving forward to, okay, how many have watched the webinar, but have not joined or enrolled? How many of those do you need to go through the objections? So it’s putting a spotlight on how many conversations you actually are having and then which conversations to be having, right. It’s not just, “Hey, how’s it going over there? Everything cool?” Like, no, you should actually be talking to this person about why they haven’t joined the program because they’ve already watched your webinar. Like, don’t just start a conversation because you don’t know what to say. You’ll know it’s exactly where they’re at in your sales pipeline, in your sales journey, in your funnel, whatever you wanna call it. And so you can have a, a more prevalent conversation with every person that is in your messages and, and direct messages.
Lanie Lamarre:
Yeah, we have this for everything. We have it for our inbox. We have it for our email marketing systems. Like these client relationship management systems, essentially what it is. But for your social media and to have that speaking to everything else that you’re working with is not just brilliant, but it’s just like, it’s one of these things where it’s like, why hasn’t somebody already done this? It had to be you, Jordan! Because this is, like, your pain point. This is something that yes, you could do these things based out of your own experiences of what’s missing in the online world. So how did you sit down and decide to be the change you wanted to see in the world? Hahaha.
Jordan Gill:
Oh gosh. Um, it took many, many nights on Airtable, uh, because I, I honestly, I have a pretty brilliant system in Airtable. The not-so-brilliant part about it is there’s so much manual work that my sales team had to do that it just became ridiculous. And so I was actually at a, a peer mastermind with some friends and we were just sitting there, you know, talking about problems in business and things we wish there were solutions for. And every single person in the room was experiencing the same issues. Now I was the one who had, I guess, the most jumpstart to a solution to this issue. But everyone was like, well, what if we create a software based on Jordan’s Airtable ? And I was like, “yeah, yeah. Okay. Like, cool.” And then we were like, “no, but really like, can we, can we do this? Like, is this the thing we can do? “
And so myself and, uh, two others. So co-founder between myself,ErinLindstrom, who is technically our CEO, she’s actually sold high ticket for agencies and a lot of group coaching programs for the past five years. And then we have Lindsey Padilla who is technically in more of an advisor role and she’s built a software company herself. And so she is more or less, again, more of an advisor role, but she still is a co-founder. And then I fulfill the role of more COO/also end-product and making sure that again, what we’re creating similar enough to the Airtable that I have built, but literally reduced all of the manual stuff that we have going on. You’ve
Lanie Lamarre:
You’ve already met some of the challenges of managing this in the way you were already doing it with air Airtable, so how to manage social media… social media marketing client relationship management? I’m sure that there’s a better term out there for it. And if you have one by means I’m happy to use it, but the you’ve encountered all the issues with improving it and how it works in Airtable and how, you know, it doesn’t work in Airtable to translate that into however it is that you are doing it on the backend to have someone like Lindsay who she’s, this is Hello Audio?
Jordan Gill:
Yep. Yep.
Lanie Lamarre:
So she’s like, she’s gone through the growing pains of, “oh, I’m gonna start a very needed platform that everybody wants and doesn’t exist and why doesn’t it exist” sort of thing. And to have those two super powers mixed with the person who organizes everything and who interacts with everyone. That’s so great to have that trifecta of different expertise levels where you’re going to skip a lot of learning curves that neither one of you would be able to do alone.
Jordan Gill:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We have the trifecta of kind of the expert in sales experts, software experts andsystems. And I’m like the systems part of that little trio.
Lanie Lamarre:
That’s amazing. So when does this launch, or is it already launched?
Jordan Gill:
Yeah, so we, uh, decided to soft launch, I guess you will say to we ended up being about 75 people. And those are 75 people who essentially said yes through paying us a one time lifetime fee for access to the software prior to its hard launch, meaning it will be a lot more public and there will be monthly and annual payment plans that will happen in April of 2022. So right now our 75 people are helping us flush out the features and find the bugs and, and give us that feedback. Um, and they they’re gonna be our true fans, right? It’s kind of the notion of a thousand true fans, but really we just were like, let’s just focus on 75 cuz a thousand is a lot, uh, to have to focus on. So we are in the process right now of getting the beta into their hand and their teams hands and figuring out again how we can just make the product that much better for the hard lunch in April of 2022.
Lanie Lamarre:
Yeah. And it’s like, things break. That’s just normal.
Jordan Gill:
Oh my God.
Lanie Lamarre:
In terms of software I’m clearly I don’t have to tell you, but when you’re putting any system together, when you’re automating anything in your, even in your small business with your, you know, your own little operations, things will break. Things need to be fixed. Bugs need to be worked out. And to be able to identify those before you do launch it, where you have to manage a thousand people who are buggy versus 75 people who are buggy, being like “we’re here to support you and we’re here to make this work and be a part of how it gets built” also in ways where you are serving how people are interacting with their own clients in a way that you might not actually be doing either, or you might not be savvy on having that feedback is so, so valuable. Feedback is the most valuable data set that you have. And it’s not a number it’s just information that you have to ask people for, is the clincher. You can’t… there’s no Google analytics for it, unfortunately.
Jordan Gill:
No, there’s not . And if there was Lanie would know about it
Lanie Lamarre:
So how long did it take from people admiring your Airtable processes and saying, “Hey, Hey, I want to be able to replicate this in my business” to where you are now with your 75 founding members and getting ready to launch into, um, making it available for all.
Jordan Gill:
Yeah. So when was this? April of 2021 is when we all met up and I was showing everyone my Airtable. Um, that’s the thing about the “behind the scenes” juice is, it’s not very often for people to know what, you know, what’s going on “behind the scenes” of everyone’s business and everyone, you know, naturally wants to see what I’m doing, cuz I’m always tinkering and creating stuff. But I will say my Airtable is pretty dang awesome. So we’re gushing over that April, 2021. And, and it was almost like, you know, we actually had originally five partners and slowly throughout the process, two of the partners determined that it wasn’t a good fit for them to put, you know, effort and energy toward the project. And that is totally okay. And we’ve many, many conscious conversations about that. So I would say the core three of us moved forward in technically June-ish/July and settled in.
Jordan Gill:
So we had, you know, the equity conversation, which is not something, you know, you have to have every day. we had, you know, roles and responsibilities conversations, legal conversations, and whatnot around everything. And, you know, cuz someone has to be the CEO. And even though it is technically my process and Airtable, I did not wanna be the face and I was very clear about that. So, um, I’m a behind the scenes gal. I already have to be the face for my one company, I don’t wanna have to do it twice. So we just had all those conversations in June, July. And then I would say we started, uh, development in July. And so when we’ve had to continue to hire developers to keep up with all of the magic that we’re trying to put together and have ready for people. Uh, so it’ll, it will have been a full year from conception of like, “okay, yeah, we’re gonna like try and move this forward” to when we actually hard-launched to the public.
Lanie Lamarre:
So correct me if I’m mistaken on the sort of timelines, but so let’s say about a year from conception to launching to the public, where you spend essentially one quarter determining what everybody’s going to be doing, who’s going to be responsible for what, putting all the legal stuff in place before you even start working on the project.
Jordan Gill:
Yep.
Lanie Lamarre:
Then a quarter working on developing the software, another quarter selling to and testing with those founding member and then you’ll be about ready to launch at, well, no, it would be a full, so maybe I’m underestimating how long it takes for the development…
Jordan Gill:
The development was about two quarters.
Lanie Lamarre:
Okay.
Jordan Gill:
Yeah.
Lanie Lamarre:
And that’s still a pretty quick turnaround, it seems to me.
Jordan Gill:
It is.
Lanie Lamarre:
Do you know what the industry standard would be for, for something like that?
Jordan Gill:
Oh goodness. More than likely, about two years actually is what we found.
Lanie Lamarre:
And I’m sure that had a lot to do with the expertise that you’re working with. One: people who know the subject matter really well. Two: people who already started software companies and have done that. And also the fact that you got your ish together, if you will, with putting all the ducks in order, everyone knowing what their role is.
Jordan Gill:
I think that’s probably one of the biggest things: he had a team in place. That was really crucial because again, uh, Lindsay on our team was in a tech incubator for her other software, Hello Audio. And so there were three months where she’s like not coming to any meetings. Uh, and we were okay with that and everything, everyone ever in flows, everyone has stuff going on. This, this is not our main business for any of us. So, you know, we have to make it work for everyone in order for us to continue to move forward. And when it doesn’t feel like it works, then we have a conscious conversation. So yeah, it’s um, I, I don’t know if I would partner with many people….
Lanie Lamarre:
Uh, nor would!
Jordan Gill:
Right. But for me, Erin and Lindsay, I’ve been in a, a peer mastermind with them for five years. I know them in out upwards, backwards, sideways all the ways. So we’ve gone through life and business together. And so I know a lot more about them than potentially even my husband that I’ve only known for three years. So, you know, it it’s, um, it’s a, it takes a very special individual for, for me to wanna put my effort and time behind something. And, and these two individuals specifically and this specific tool and, you know, there was a lot of timing. You know, three years ago, even last year, if they had come to me with this, I’d be like, uh, like, “I don’t know, like let me see.” But it just, it’s one of those things: when it feels right, then, then it feels right.
Lanie Lamarre:
And that’s where you’re also like tapping into the clairvoyant thing, by the way. Because if you were to come up with this idea a year ago, I’m not sure it would have the impact that it does right now.
Jordan Gill:
I agree.
Lanie Lamarre:
With all of these changes with the iOS updates and people being, “I can’t do my tracking and the, uh, the cookies aren’t working and everything in my marketing is falling apart.” Your marketing isn’t falling apart. It is forcing you to be more human. It is forcing you to interact with people in a more humane way, rather than just being pitching with emails that are cold and automated. You’re actually going to have to, you know, use pipelines and things like that and follow up.
Jordan Gill:
That’s a crazy concept.
Lanie Lamarre:
It’s such a weird thing, but it’s what we all used to do. And I really love that this software is coming out when it is when everyone’s just kind of screaming for the hill saying, “oh, my whole marketing system’s ruined.” No, you’re just going to have re-think how you use it. Yeah. And this is so perfect for filling in that gap. What is the software called? How do people find out more about this?
Jordan Gill:
Yes. So the software is called Collect and the technical legal name is Let’s Collect but you can check out our website, it’s just, letscollect.co. I’m sure Lanie will have it somewhere in the show notes as well.
If this is previous to April, there will be a wait list. But if it is after April, you know, you’re listening to this, then it will be our main page and you can check out the features and us and, and all of the good stuff. So, uh, we also are on Instagram and Facebook technically, um, not a shocker as we are connected to social, but, um, and that, let’s just, you know, letscollect, I believe @letscollectco on Instagram and I believe it’s also letscollectco on Facebook.
Lanie Lamarre:
I’ll make sure that we have all the links to those, as well as to your own personal Instagram feed. Because if you are at all interested in getting organized and connecting in a human way with the way that you are putting systems in place, Jordan is, um… I know that your Systems Saved Me is your brand but when I think of you, I think of the relationship building skills that you have. That’s the number one thing that always shows up for first for me.
Jordan Gill:
Thank you.
Lanie Lamarre:
And that shows up so much in your, in Instagram posts, in your feed, in the way that you interact. So, um, I encourage everyone to go check that out as well. I’ll put link to that in the show notes, but if people do wanna follow you, where do they do that personally?
Jordan Gill:
Yes. So I am at Systems Saved Me, um, and Instagram is my jam. That’s mainly where I am. So if you’re on Facebook are actually gonna be routed to my team. I? Um, so, uh, I just, I don’t know, Facebook is not isn’t my jam as much as Instagram. So I would say @systemssavedme on Instagram is probably the best place to connect with me specifically.
Lanie Lamarre:
That’s awesome. Thank you so much, Jordan, not just for doing the podcast, but for creating the things that… listen, we all know that we want this, somebody had to do when it was you and I’m grateful you did.
Jordan Gill:
Oh, thank you so much, Lanie, for having me on and for always just again, doing amazing, amazing work with systems. It’s, it’s really awesome to continue to support you and, and shine a lot on you as much as I can.
Lanie Lamarre:
I encourage you to take a step back and think about how YOU are interacting with people, how YOU are building relationships in this digital landscape. Not how you’re making sales, not how you’re building awareness of your brand, but where is the interaction and engagement happening, where are the conversations taking place?
It is only going to become more and more important for you to be able to meet people where THEY are, and you can and should expect to see more tools like Connect making that easier for you to manage. The value of something like Connect starts with YOUR ability to identify “hey! my people and interactions go down on social media… how do I better set those interactions up?” and finding a system or process that will make that happen.
Jordan has taken hers for social media and created the software so you don’t have to. But you do have the action item here of thinking intentionally about where those connections are happening for you and exploring the ways you can make those better for both you and your audience.
And if you want to connect with me by way of a 5-star review, I’d love the stink out that so please do that and subscribe and all the things, and we will connect again next week – baiiieee!!!