In today’s Q&A with S&J, Dr. Bridget Young from babyformulaexpert.com asks us:
“I’ve started doing paid consulting. How do you guys do all the logistics of your paid consulting from payments to scheduling. How do you automate the whole system to make it as easy as possible?”
Shane: What’s going on, guys? Welcome to another Q&A with S&J. We are sitting here right now, still hanging out at a water park with our kids. They are running around having a blast. Alright, today’s question is from Bridget, and she has a website called babyformulaexpert.com, and she writes, “I’ve started doing paid consulting. How do you guys do all the logistics of your paid consulting from payments to scheduling? How do you automate the whole system to make it as easy as possible?”
I have no idea how we do this, but Jocelyn does. I will tell you our big picture goals, then I’ll turn the microphone over to her. Our big picture goals are basically to automate the process so much, that we literally show up 10 minutes before the call, we review who we are going to be talking to, all of their information so that we know that going in. Then we work with them on the call.
Most of our calls, 90% are the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. We only do consulting calls with our members, and we air those on the podcast. We have it all set up where basically someone comes, goes to a page, and we show up at the scheduled time, record, and that’s the only thing we do after that. I’m going to let Jocelyn tell you a little bit on the scheduling, and how that works because quite frankly, that ain’t my ballpark. All right.
Jocelyn: Basically we use scheduling software. It’s really awesome because everything is pretty much automated. There are a lot of different types of scheduling software that you can use. We just set up everything in the backend so basically they just come in. You can set it up on an Apple calendar, on a Google calendar to coordinate with those. The calendar software knows when you have something going on. You can even go in and open up specific days and specific times if you want to go that far into it. We do that, we usually only record on Tuesday and Thursdays.
The next thing that you want to do is go in and set up your e-mail reminders. You can set it up for any time period that you want. We do one week before, two days before, and the day before and the morning of, I think. We have several reminders. You can also do what is called an ‘Intake form’ for people who sign up, so when they sign up on your calendar, they fill out a series of questions which will then either be e-mailed to you or stored in the calendar software, and that is really handy to have. Whenever it goes into your calendar, that information will show up actually on the calendar. So, it’s pretty cool how it all works.
If you want to do paid consulting, which I think is what you’re asking about, basically, all that you need to do is just set that up within your calendar software to be able to accept a payment to make a booking. It’s really pretty easy, just get some good calendar software, and set it up that way.
Shane: What I always recommend for all of this stuff is, write down what you wanted to do, and then find the tool that does it. You don’t have to use the same calendar software that we do to do all this. All this can be done, I mean, if you have a calendar software, you could probably just set up a PayPal button or an order form — and there is a kid over here. That’s real life right there. Did you all hear that? That was not our children, if you could hear that screaming in the background. But what was I saying? Oh yeah.
You want to write it down, what you want it to look like, and then go find whatever it takes to make it happen, and remove yourself from that process. This could be a sales funnel where, when people go to your website, they click on the consultant button, go to a sales page, pay you, go to your calendar, fill out the intake form, like Jocelyn said. Then you’ll just show up at the interview with that information, review it, and then go straight into that consulting call. Then when you’re done, it’s over. So, you’re only trading that one hour for those dollars, not ten hours behind the schedule.
For anybody scheduling anything, use automation. Use the calendar. Come here, guys, come here. Use the calendar. You’ll make your life a lot easier. Hhere’s Isaac. Anna, wave at the camera.
Isaac: Dad, Is Anna supposed to have a life jacket on?
Shane: Yes, she is. All right. Okay, we’re going to go swim with our kids. We have reached the end of this Q&A with S&J because our kids are ready to go to the wave pool, and we’ve been here for a while, so she’s a little tired. Thank you for tuning in to the Q&A with S&J. Anna, lean in, say bye. Bye-bye. We will be back with you next time to answer another question. If you would like to ask us a question on the Q&A with S&J, you can do that over at flippedlifestyle.com/patreon. We answer all of our patron’s questions right here on the Q&A with S&J podcast and on YouTube. So until next time, we will see you then.
Anna: Bye!
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Andrea says
Which scheduling software do you guys use?
Shane Sams says
We use Acuity 🙂