How a Nonprofit Rebuilt Nearly 100 Website Pages in 3 Months [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 177]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy. 

[00:00:00] Bob Ruffolo: If your company is planning a website redesign anytime soon, watch this before you start. Options For Learning was already more than a year into trying to replace their website when they realized they were approaching their entire project the wrong way. They stopped, they changed their strategy, and they now have the perfect website for them in just a few months.

[00:00:19] Bob Ruffolo: What they learned along the way completely changed how they think about their website, their content, their data, and even how families find them through AI. In this episode, you're gonna see the decisions they made, what they had wished they had understood sooner, and what had started happening once their website, CRM, content, and entire customer journey were finally connected​

[00:01:24] Bob Ruffolo: And welcome back to another episode of the Endless Customers Podcast. We have a great company today going to share their experience, uh, going through a website redesign process. We're gonna hear their entire story of where they were before, uh, what their current or their past website was costing them, why they had to go through a transformation, and where they are now, and how it's completely changing their business.

[00:01:48] Bob Ruffolo: The company is called Options For Learning, and I will let them introduce what the business does here in a second. Uh, but we have two of their leaders, um, with me today. Uh, we have Alice Lye, who is the vice president of enrollment, [00:02:00] and we have Leslie Carmel, who is the vice president of communications and public relations.

[00:02:06] Bob Ruffolo: Uh, welcome to the Endless Customers Podcast. Alice, we'll start with you. Uh, welcome to the show. And Alice, if I can just ask you really quickly, um, tell us about what Options For Learning does.

[00:02:18] Alice Lai: Absolutely. Hi, everybody. It's so nice to see you. Here at Options For Learning, we've been around for 45 years. We're a nonprofit, and our goal is to serve families and support them with the educational journey of their children. So we serve over 11,000 families from infants to toddlers, preschoolers. We support kids in elementary schools and middle schools, all to help families get the quality early learning school-age care that they need.

[00:02:45] Alice Lai: Um, what's even more incredible is that the large majority of our families pay little to nothing for really high-quality educational support and services. So it's really a unique vision.

[00:02:55] Bob Ruffolo: Uh, it's amazing. It's amazing. And you are in charge of enrollment. [00:03:00] And hi, Leslie, welcome to the, the show, and you are in charge of communications and public relations. And both of you, um, the website's gotta be so important to what you do. So, um, so Alice, we'll start with you. Why is the website so important to your business for being in charge of en- enrollment?

[00:03:18] Alice Lai: The website is really the first place that families engage with us and learn about us. It sets the tone for the type of organization that we are. We want families to be able to understand what we do and how we support families. And I think the main thing is, you know, for a parent, I have two kids of my own, your child is your most precious thing in the entire

[00:03:40] Bob Ruffolo: Of course

[00:03:41] Alice Lai: and making that decision to leave your child with a caretaker is a really hard decision. Um, and it's something that families really take time with because it's your most precious being in the whole world. And the website is really that first opening into understanding, you know, do we love [00:04:00] children?

[00:04:00] Alice Lai: Are we experts in childcare? Can we take care of your child the way that you want your child to be taken care of? And so the website is really that place where families go to for information, not just logistical and tactical things, but also the essence and the vibe of who we are in our schools.

[00:04:15] Bob Ruffolo: Incredible. So Leslie, I'll pass it over to you. The website obviously is very critical for your role as well, brand and communications. So, um, like why don't you paint the picture of where the website was before you started this journey, um, of, of, uh, a massive redesign project that was necessary for the business?

[00:04:35] Leslie Carmell: I, you know, I think for our organization, um, this, this process has been transformative. The, the platform we were using before was, um, very limited. We had to... Any sort of changes that we needed to make, we had, you know, we had very little control over it. We had to message them, w-wait for them to get back to us, and usually when they got back to us, they would tell us that functionality wasn't possible, um, or the [00:05:00] data we were looking for wasn't available.

[00:05:02] Leslie Carmell: Um, and so it was, it was painful. Um, there were a lot of limitations with how we could even present the information. Um, and so it really wasn't, um, really wasn't supporting our families. And beyond that, also, I think we didn't... The approach we took to how we shared the information was how it made sense to us, not how it made sense to the end user.

[00:05:28] Leslie Carmell: Um, and so, you know, if you went to our website before, I, I, like Alice, I'm a mom, and so I would go visit the website when I was applying for the job, right? And taking a look at it and like, "Do I understand what the programs are? What do I, how do I, you know, understand what this organization is doing?" And it was so confusing and really overwhelming.

[00:05:47] Leslie Carmell: And I wasn't even looking for care, right? I was just trying to find out what Options For Learning was about. Um, and so looking at it from a parent who's looking for, um, a program for their child, you know, I th- a confused mind [00:06:00] says no, And that's where I think it was costing us. I think people would go to the website, they would look for information, and just be overwhelmed and go someplace else

[00:06:09] Bob Ruffolo: Oh, it's the worst. And sure people are listening to this being like, "Yep, I know the feeling." Uh, we are there, we've been there, um, a- and certainly a lot of the companies we've worked with, uh, were in a very similar position. So, um, so you were feeling it, Leslie, and, and Alice, you were feeling, uh, the pain of the current website.

[00:06:29] Bob Ruffolo: Um, how did the whole project come together where you're like, "All right, we have to get a new website"? Like, what, what was the internal, uh, struggle that we were having? 'Cause that's a big priority for a company, especially a company of your size and what you guys are doing. Um, the website is so integrated in everything you do, it's not like a flip the switch thing.

[00:06:49] Bob Ruffolo: So, so Alice, I'll, I'll go over to you. What was that like in terms of, um, I guess getting the sign-off to, to do this a- uh, [00:07:00] inside, inside Options For Learning?

[00:07:01] Alice Lai: It was, uh, an uphill battle, but not for the reasons that I think most would expect, right? Like, everyone in the organization, even before I started, the website was a top priority to evolve and update. And when I started, Leslie had already initiated the project, uh, but there was, like, another partner that we were currently engaging in discussions and sort of a plan with.

[00:07:25] Alice Lai: And when we went to the HubSpot conference and met Marcus and started learning about IMPACT, I think that's all the roads started converging, right? Like, we started the work with IMPACT to really focus on, like, content marketing, building up all of those things. At the same time, we knew we needed to revamp the website.

[00:07:44] Alice Lai: And as we had continued conversations, it just made more and more sense that we merge the two under one strategic vision, one strategy with, like, the same approach and the same voice. Um, so I think the philosophical alignment was [00:08:00] there, but it was a lot of the logistics to ensure that we engaged the right partner to support us in redesigning the website so that all roads could converge in the right direction together.

[00:08:10] Bob Ruffolo: Sounds good. So it sounds like this is already an issue in the company. So yeah, Alice, I'm sorry, go ahead

[00:08:16] Leslie Carmell: Oh, I was just gonna say, I, you know, I think, um, w- the approach that we were taking before that was, you know, we need to migrate the website, we need to get to a more flexible platform, but we were looking at it strictly from a marketing perspective. And I think once we really aligned with the Endless Customers framework, that's where it shifted.

[00:08:38] Leslie Carmell: Because it's not just about sort of advertising your programs, it's about building trust, and that was the piece that was missing, I think, in the way we were approaching it before. And so we did, we came to a grinding halt with what we were doing, and completely pivoted to change the way that we were approaching the website.

[00:08:56] Leslie Carmell: Um, we were kind of midstream. We had done a lot of research, um, [00:09:00] and that was still helpful. Um, but it, you know, shifting the way that we approached the information that we were sharing. You know, we had 45 years of information, you know, that had been crammed into this website, and it was just sort of chaos, and there was a lot of...

[00:09:15] Leslie Carmell: You know, the one thing you find out when you're migrating a website is how much sort of legacy information is there forever. When they say it's on the internet forever, it's there forever. So we really, really needed to do a deep dive into that and figure out, you know, what made sense to keep, what needed to go, what needed to be changed so that it made

[00:09:33] Bob Ruffolo: How redirect?

[00:09:35] Leslie Carmell: Right

[00:09:35] Leslie Carmell: Exactly. Oh my gosh, we're still finding, we're still finding those. We're, we're only about three, uh, about three months post-launch. Um, so, you know, website's never finished, right? So we're s- we're still doing some of that, um, uh, some of that research work. And, um, and still developing, right? But we're still...

[00:09:54] Leslie Carmell: Because the data that's coming in is really giving us a lot of insight we never had before. Um, so, [00:10:00] but I, I think just really approaching it from, um, you know, being the answer, right? We did a deep dive. Alice checked with her team, the, the intake team who's talking to the families that are calling in. We talked to our family engagement team.

[00:10:14] Leslie Carmell: They're the ones that work with the families once they're enrolled, but we continue to support them. And we asked them, "What are, what are you being asked? When the families are getting to you, what are they asking? And let's answer that before they even reach out to us." And so that, I think, was really the most significant shift

[00:10:31] Bob Ruffolo: Incredible. Incredible. So

[00:10:33] Alice Lai: chime in quickly, Bob.

[00:10:35] Alice Lai: Um, one thing that I sort of am reflecting on is, you know, prior to all of this, when it was really perceived as sort of like a tactical migration of the website, right? We just need to move it. We need a tool that's, like, easy to use. But as we continue to learn about HubSpot, engage with HubSpot, engage with IMPACT, you know, we, we learned about the migration, and if we migrated the way we had originally planned, we still, we still would have inherited [00:11:00] some of those structural barriers that existed in the prior website.

[00:11:04] Alice Lai: And I think that's when it came to a grinding halt. Leslie and I were like, "Maybe we should rethink how we're doing the strategic, um, website sort of redes- so it's aligned with what we're ultimately trying to achieve."

[00:11:18] Bob Ruffolo: Well, I, I think if I'm, I'm gonna pull all this together, I think it was the realization that the website is the place where people go and learn about us. Um, are we being clear? Are we being concise? Are we organizing the journey that someone's going through when they're considering working with us a- and being able to easily get into our program and giving them the trust and the credibility, um, and that is not something that we just can off- uh, outsource to somebody.

[00:11:47] Bob Ruffolo: We need to be able to have a lot more ownership o- of that. Uh, we were talking a lot about data. We'll get into all that in a little bit. But this is, this is really the, the hub of our strategy. It's how we go to market, um, and certainly in today's [00:12:00] world, where we're not talking as much about getting found in Google, but we're getting recommended in AI, do we have a very clear, consistent, up-to-date, not outdated, that is sharing our story in the way we, we help?

[00:12:12] Bob Ruffolo: Um, and, and that, that was, uh... That needed to be completely redone. And, uh, you guys decide, okay, you got enough organizational buying, got sign-off that said, "We're going all in. We are going to stop what we're doing. We had a migration over here, but we need to now do it the right way." Um, and, and your strategy completely shifted.

[00:12:31] Leslie Carmell: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:32] Leslie Carmell: Absolutely 

[00:12:33] Bob Ruffolo: So, so now we, um, you, you hired IMPACT, and, um, and you started working with Allison Riggs, uh, our Endless Customers coach, and you started working on your Endless Customers journey, the things that Marcus talked about at the INBOUND conference, um, and, uh, which was in San Francisco last year, so that was probably pretty close for you guys.

[00:12:52] Bob Ruffolo: That's nice.

[00:12:53] Alice Lai: Yep

[00:12:54] Bob Ruffolo: And, um, so what were some of the first things you worked on with Allison, and then had that lead [00:13:00] to, okay, now we're time for the webs- it's time to, to work on the website? Um, and I- I'll go over to, uh, who, who should I go to? May- maybe, Leslie, did I go to you in this first?

[00:13:10] Leslie Carmell: Yeah, I, you know, so the process was really doing a deep dive. Um, you know, IMPACT help- uh, helped us audit the pages that we had and the content, so then it was really doing that initial review. What stays, what goes, what needs to be completely rewritten. Um, and so we went through that pros- process. They were really helpful with us with guiding us through that, um, you know, those steps.

[00:13:33] Leslie Carmell: And, um, I think really helping us look at it from... You know, obviously we wanted to optimize the new site for SEO and for AEO, um, but we also really wanted to make sure that, like more importantly, we were building that trust factor. So how did we need to reframe that content to be able to support that? So that was a, you know, really big part of it.

[00:13:57] Leslie Carmell: Um, and

[00:13:58] Bob Ruffolo: Was there anything [00:14:00] that you learned in that process that was like, s- two or three things that really stood out, like, "All right, this is how we bring trust, uh, through our website"?

[00:14:07] Leslie Carmell: Yeah. I think there's two things that we've, um, integrated into our site, and we continue to integrate, um, that stand out to me. So the first is the FAQ section. Um, that's really such a critical part of the pages that we create. Um, it, you know, obviously it can be found by AEO, and that's the other thing we're realizing that a lot of our families, that is how they're searching now, right?

[00:14:28] Leslie Carmell: They're not just going on Google, but they are using, you know, AI platforms to, to look for information. So how do we ensure that we show up there as a credible source? Um, and that's where the FAQs really help. And then also, um, our learning center, which we've renamed, um, on our website. It's our resource hub.

[00:14:45] Leslie Carmell: Um, but that's providing, um, and, and Alice's team is providing a lot of the content for that. Um, but that's providing really important information to sort of distill down, you know, the, the questions around our programs. What are people's [00:15:00] choices? What's the difference between TK and preschool, for example, right?

[00:15:03] Leslie Carmell: So to distill down that information and make it available in a really digestible format, um, but also for our internal teams to be able to use those articles as resources. So when they do talk to families, they're able to grab that information and, and share it with them, and it's at their fingertips. So I think those are two, two areas, um, that have really transformed our site.

[00:15:22] Bob Ruffolo: And before the migration to the HubSpot platform, were you able to easily publish content on your website, or was that more, was that a challenge for you guys?

[00:15:32] Leslie Carmell: We had a news section, so we could put information in the news section, but it wasn't, um, you couldn't filter, you couldn't really search. It was just sort of like, "Here's the latest news," right? So it, it wasn't user-friendly. Again, it's like sort of what made sense to us, but not to the end user

[00:15:48] Bob Ruffolo: And Alice, for you, was there anything that as you went through this journey of setting up the new site, bringing more, earning more trust and, and, and driving more conversions for possible enrollment, was there anything that you learned [00:16:00] that came into that strategy that was mission-critical for, for where you are today?

[00:16:03] Alice Lai: Absolutely. I think the biggest piece of awareness for us as an orga- organization is we now have a platform and a system and a process for sharing the expertise that lives within our people's brain. Prior to all of this, the, the sort of tagline or sort of CTA was like, "Call us to learn more," like, " Call to talk to someone."

[00:16:26] Alice Lai: And now we're able to start pulling that information out and share that in bite-sized chunks in a really strategic manner with not just our families, but our own internal teams. So it's really... What we're really trying to do is break down the silos of information and make it transparent both externally and internally, um, 'cause so many of our education advisors, so many of our team members have been working with families for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years.

[00:16:52] Alice Lai: That's like a, a wealth of information that you just can't replicate. And so being able to put that on the website so that [00:17:00] families, like moms, right? Like, they're... You know, after the kids go to bed, that's when you're usually researching and catching up on all the things that you need to do in life. You don't have time to call someone from 8:00 to 5:00.

[00:17:10] Alice Lai: So my goal is really to get the information out there that families are seeking, um, s- on the platform, on the website, so they can access it when they need to, and then call us, reach out to us with any additional questions that they have

[00:17:23] Bob Ruffolo: Well, I think, you know, what, what I'm hearing here too is, um, being very specific moving forward on your site. So being specific around who you work with and, and the s- the things that you've done and accomplished, and your specific perspectives on the way things should be done, how you're the right fit for some people, maybe not the right fit for other people, how you do things differently.

[00:17:45] Bob Ruffolo: Um, specific answers a- and really great answers to the many, many questions that parents have around, um, uh, these education options for their, their families and their children. Um, and, and by doing [00:18:00] that, um, in this AI first world that we're all living in, um, AI craves original information, original research, original data, original perspectives, specificity, details on all these things because it uses all that and all this first-party data.

[00:18:18] Bob Ruffolo: Whatever you say, it's a big part of the story. Your trust signals are the other part of the story, but your website is such a big part of the story of, um, you saying, "We do these things. We've got examples of these things. We've-- This is our experience and what we do," so it can confidently re- recommend you.

[00:18:35] Bob Ruffolo: And it can say, "Well, because you said this, Options For Learning says that they do that specifically on their site, that's why I'm recommending them." Or, "Because your family looks like this and you're in this area, um, that, that's why I'm recommending Options For Learning because they work with families just like you in the same area in the market that you're in."

[00:18:52] Bob Ruffolo: And, and that's all core to the strategy of the website you guys are putting together. Incredible. All right, so [00:19:00] now we got our strategy down. We've now know how we got to this point. Um, then you had to actually get to work and start building this new website, which is a very scary and daunting task. And, and, uh, Alice, I'll start with you.

[00:19:14] Bob Ruffolo: Um, uh, walk me through, like, the early stages of the journey of what you experienced when working with the team at IMPACT here.

[00:19:25] Alice Lai: I think first and foremost, the IMPACT team is so knowledgeable in their understanding of both the strategy and the approach, and also worked incredibly on... hard to understand who we are and what we do. 'Cause from my understanding, we're not your typical IMPACT client or customer, right? Like, we're a nonprofit, um, we're not a for-profit company.

[00:19:47] Alice Lai: And you would think that sort of, you know, selling something for free would be easy, right? But actually, it's, it's pretty complex, and you still have to go through similar stages. And so the IMPACT team really went above [00:20:00] and beyond to understand, okay, we have Endless Customers, but how do we adapt that for what Options For Learning needs?

[00:20:06] Alice Lai: And internally, we have adopted Endless Families, right? Because that, that is how our team is in service of families. And so having that shift and that alignment, I think, was number one. We still have sort of a long way to go with adopting all the things and doing all the things, but that strategy and that vision is really important.

[00:20:24] Alice Lai: And then number two, I would say, you know, our organization is large. We serve 11,000 families. Um, we have, like, 1,000 employees. We have close to 70 preschool, school-age sites across Southern California. So operationally, there's a lot going on. So to take on this project, um, really didn't fit within the regular day-to-day job

[00:20:46] Alice Lai: And I'll let Leslie sort of speak more to that. So what IMPACT did was hold us to a really tight timeline to achieve our goal. Without that timeline, without that accountability, without Allie calling Leslie and I and saying, [00:21:00] "Hey, you guys have had this on your list. It's not done yet. You need to finish it by this day.

[00:21:05] Alice Lai: We can help you if you wanna make your deadline to publish the website on this day." And I really appreciate that because, you know, when you're operating your day-to-day, it can really be easy to be like, "Oh, the project, the website, I'll get to that later." Like, it's the fire right now, it's the crisis right now.

[00:21:23] Alice Lai: But IMPACT, what they did is really sort of like hold our hand while holding our feet to the fire to help us achieve the goal together, and we wouldn't have been able to do that without them

[00:21:33] Bob Ruffolo: Oh, well. Um, hey, that's, that's, that's our focus here is, you know, um, creating heroes, growing businesses, changing lives. And, uh, I'm so happy to hear that that's the experience that you had 'cause that's, that's our entire, um, business model right there is... Accountability is a big part of it, but it's all in service of getting you to where you wanna get to.

[00:21:57] Bob Ruffolo: Um, yeah, Leslie, uh, would you add to [00:22:00] that at all?

[00:22:00] Leslie Carmell: Yeah, I think, you know, if we were still, you know, proceeding with our previous plan, we'd still be proceeding with our previous plan. We wouldn't be where we are. Um, so, you know, 100% I agree with that, and I, you know, I think it's all in support of our goals, right? It's not just what IMPACT, like, "Okay, we need to get this done so we can move on to our next, you know, client," right?

[00:22:26] Leslie Carmell: "And a- and check this one off." They really cared about the project. They cared about the families. They cared about our goals to serve our families, and so I think that was at the center of all the work that we were doing together

[00:22:38] Bob Ruffolo: Amazing. And I understand, um, so our team, uh, we pitched in, we helped got, get content done for you. Um, and how long was this project from start to finish when we said, "Okay, we're kicking off the website project," to the tight deadlines that we had to when it was launched?

[00:22:53] Leslie Carmell: Gosh, I wanna say three months. Was it three? It was about three months. It

[00:22:59] Bob Ruffolo: massive project [00:23:00] to do in three months

[00:23:01] Leslie Carmell: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we had, uh, gosh, I think just about 100 pages that needed to be created, but again, it wasn't a direct migration. There was a lot of new content that needed to be created, right? Um, so it was, it was very aggressive, um, and the team was immensely helpful.

[00:23:21] Leslie Carmell: Um, and we did it. We... And, and I

[00:23:24] Bob Ruffolo: God for AI, right? I'm played big role in that.

[00:23:27] Leslie Carmell: But I do remember we were like, "Gosh, can we push this off a little bit?" And they said, "Nope, this is when we're doing it." And, you know, it, it happened, it got done, and now I'm so grateful. Um, like Alice said, that, you know, they held our feet to the fire and we got it done, and it's, it's already making a, a change, right?

[00:23:45] Bob Ruffolo: Now why, why, why three months? Was there ... I know obviously we like to do things quick because obviously we're a business that we, as long as we have website projects never end, that's not good for us. But did you guys have a business reason why we needed to get this thing launched by a [00:24:00] certain date?

[00:24:00] Alice Lai: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think Leslie had been working on the website, website redesign for, like, over a year, right? Mm-hmm. And so we were just like, "We gotta get it done."

[00:24:10] Bob Ruffolo: 'Cause we're sick of it. Okay

[00:24:12] Alice Lai: and I think, um, the enrollment cycle of our organization, um, we're really trying to get new families during April, May, June, all the way through the summer before the traditional beginning of the school year in August.

[00:24:26] Alice Lai: So

[00:24:26] Bob Ruffolo: longer this went on, the longer you're going into your, the season of enrollment

[00:24:31] Alice Lai: Exactly. And then I think the second sort of priority for me was, um, our enrollment team, one of the ways on our old website that families would engage with us was fill out what we called an intake form. Um, and it was a, uh, sort of like 25 to 30 question intake form, which I imagine, um, was

[00:24:52] Bob Ruffolo: Conversion killer.

[00:24:53] Alice Lai: great for families, right?

[00:24:55] Alice Lai: And so a lot of times families would just fill out part one, we would still have the information, [00:25:00] um, but they weren't using the whole form. So one of my biggest priorities when I joined Options was simplifying the intake form and being able to get data to drive what we're doing. Prior to the website redesign, I could only access the data around how many intakes we were getting each month from a manual data download from someone on my team.

[00:25:18] Alice Lai: So I was really pushing for an earlier website redesign so we could do the interest form on our new website and have data where every day I'm checking, how many did we get this morning? How many did I get in the last hour? I can see it by week, I can see it by month, and that's really driving transformative change around the work that we're doing in the enrollment team.

[00:25:37] Bob Ruffolo: Great. So, um, uh, that was gonna be one of my other questions here too, is around the goals of the website. So that was obviously one of them. Um, and Alice, we'll stick with you. What, what would you say your top three goals were for the site? And that might have been one of them, but if you could just recite the, the top three goals you had

[00:25:56] Alice Lai: Yeah, absolutely. I would say top three goals, number one [00:26:00] was the website reflecting who we are so families would feel safe having their children go to our campuses. Number two was the interest form, simplifying the interest form, having the website connected to a platform like HubSpot so we could access data at our fingertips to make informative decisions.

[00:26:20] Alice Lai: Um, and the third one was the resource hub, the learning, um, center that we're currently developing. We are currently on track launching three content articles a week. Um, we put up, I think, maybe close to 10 or 12 in the resource hub, and I'm checking the data da- daily, weekly to see what's our top article.

[00:26:39] Alice Lai: Like, how many views, how many clicks? Um, and not surprisingly, the most read articles right now are around transitional kindergarten, which is a really hot topic here in California as the shift goes towards school districts having transitional kindergarten. Many families are confused about what it is, what it entails, what's the difference over here versus over there.

[00:26:59] Alice Lai: So [00:27:00] having that content hub of articles and blogs has, you know, we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg, but super excited to see where it goes.

[00:27:07] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah, and I think what you'll, you'll probably find over time as you continue to invest more in this content, um, that yes, humans will read it, but even more so, um, it'll feed AI. It'll be-- at some point become part of the LLM. Um, but even these AI systems are going out and doing their research and pulling answers in, and you'll be inserting your perspectives and your vision into the answers that users are asking ChatGPT, Gemini, or whatever it might be.

[00:27:37] Bob Ruffolo: Um, and you'll probably see a lot more wins from that, and then they'll probably come to your site much later by having already said, like, "Options for learning is the best solution for me." Um, interesting. So, um, Leslie, would you say that you had similar goals? Do you have, uh, any additional goals you would add to this as well?

[00:27:54] Leslie Carmell: Yeah, I, you know, like Alice, um, trying to have an integrated system I [00:28:00] think was really important. Um, you know, we had, so we had the website that was over here with the form that was collecting information that, um, you know, c- we could give them spreadsheets. That was about all that we could export, right?

[00:28:16] Leslie Carmell: Um, and then the CRM was in a different place. Um, and then our broad communication platform where we would send out push pages was in a different place, and none of this was connected. So there was not, it was not possible to track that, the journey of our families. What does it look like as they move through the process?

[00:28:35] Leslie Carmell: Where do things get hung up? Like, where are those pain points, right? Where could we be better? Um, where were we excelling? Where were, what, you know, what was the area where we were doing well? There was no way to identify any of that. So to be able to have that in one system, um, that really was why we were such champions for, you know, shifting to HubSpot and being able to have all of that in one system, one ecosystem.

[00:28:59] Bob Ruffolo: So getting everything in [00:29:00] one system, you both, both said that, and HubSpot is obviously the tool that does that. HubSpot's great. It's one connected area. You can always add on more capabilities, but most of what any business needs is, is gonna have that in one platform. Um, what would each of you say is the bes- maybe besides that or you could build on that, is the, um, the greatest win after going through this redesign process?

[00:29:26] Bob Ruffolo: Like, we are so much better now today because of this project and, and this is one area, uh, reason why. So, uh, Leslie, we'll start with you 'cause you're on my screen

[00:29:38] Leslie Carmell: Yeah. You know, one of the things that we're doing right now, um, we're working with, uh, Brian Casey, and he's helping us take a look at the data. So now that we have the site, we have the content out there, what do we do with that? How are families, you know, moving through that, um, through the pages, through the content?

[00:29:55] Leslie Carmell: You know, again, where are they getting hung up? Um, that has been [00:30:00] so eye-opening, um, and it has allowed us to make immediate changes, immediate shifts, you know, in real time. We're on calls, and we're shifting what we're doing on the pages. We just, you know, threw up an AB test the other day. But even that was interesting because, um, you know, for a long time our organization has sort of shied away from the term daycare.

[00:30:22] Leslie Carmell: Um, not that daycare is a negative thing. Uh, it's a great thing, but, you know, our programs are, um, curriculum-based, so that's a really... You know, so we've really framed it around early learning programs because that's, that's what our programs are. But what we're finding through the data, the way that they're coming to us, what is the family doing?

[00:30:41] Leslie Carmell: They're going online, and they're saying, "Find a daycare near me." That's how they're searching, and that's how they're getting to our site. And so we're realizing, you know what? We can, you know, dig our heels in and say, "This is who we are, and they need to figure it out," or we can shift, and we can now, you know, pr- you know, showcase our pages and our content [00:31:00] in a different way so it's easier for them to find us.

[00:31:03] Leslie Carmell: Um, and so that's, you know, that's a different approach that we're taking now, and we never would've been able to do that before

[00:31:08] Bob Ruffolo: You know, it's interesting you're saying that too, 'cause we often say the website launch is not the finish of the project. It's called the launch just like if a rocket takes off, you're-- it's not done. Like, "Our rocket's off. Okay, bye. Everyone say bye. We're, we're done here." It's like, no, it's the beginning, right?

[00:31:23] Bob Ruffolo: A launch means beginning, and then the real work comes with what you're doing right now, which is, all right, we launched. What data do we have? What are we learning? What's working? What tests can we do? How can it be better? And let's try new things. That's how you actually grow a website. It's never just launching it.

[00:31:40] Bob Ruffolo: A l- and a, a lot of people have that wrong. It's like, "I can't wait to launch this website and be done with it." Like, no, launch means taking off. It's just getting started. So awesome. Alex, how about you? What would you say the biggest win was?

[00:31:52] Alice Lai: I think for me, it's something I sort of shared initially when we first started was the website was really just [00:32:00] the, opening the gates to what's possible, right? I really think the biggest win for us as an organization is change is possible. We can now think outside the box, try something new, use data to do so, and adjust and pivot if we need to.

[00:32:16] Alice Lai: I think prior to the website sort of being this whole migration and this whole project was, "Well, we can't do it because of this, and we can't do it because of that." And Leslie and I would hear that a lot, like, "We can't because of this. We can't because of this." And now it's like, "Oh, I think we can. Like, let's look into that.

[00:32:32] Alice Lai: Let's see what's possible." I think it's really given everyone permission to think about how we can change things in sort of bite-sized chunks. I think also visually, thematically, the website reflects who we are, and now as people are reading our website, engaging with our website, we're now understanding like, "Oh, this is the experience we want for our families," and we're better able to identify where it's not aligned, right?[00:33:00] 

[00:33:00] Alice Lai: So one of the things we're working on is like, okay, we have our own internal terms, but we don't need to use the internal terms with our families. So how do we distinguish between what we're saying internally versus externally now that we have a beautiful website to put all of those things on? It's like very much more present in people's minds around how we should do that with intention.

[00:33:21] Bob Ruffolo: I am so happy for you guys. As I'm, as I'm listening to this conversation, it's like, um, I'm, uh, you can tell how much you care about the work that you do and the communities that you serve, and you just want to do more good in the world. And you had this impediment of, of just this weight holding your organization back that was just dragging you guys down, and now you're free to that weight so you can do your best work.

[00:33:47] Bob Ruffolo: Um, a- and it's an incredible mission that you have. Um, let me,

[00:33:52] Leslie Carmell: Bob, I was just thinking, uh, I was just gonna say, I was just thinking as you were saying that, um, that I think, you know, Alice pointed out earlier about [00:34:00] how we're, you know, probably different from some of the Endless Customers, um, clients, and how we're looking at, like, Endless families. You know, we're not really selling anything.

[00:34:08] Leslie Carmell: In fact, we're providing something, right? We're providing many times free and affordable care to families who qualify. So I think for us it, it is different, right? It's, you know, a lot of times sales can be looked at as sort of a negative thing, and for, for us it's different. It's not really sales, really.

[00:34:26] Leslie Carmell: It's about just making sure that we can share with families resources that can help their family, right? Um, that they can benefit from, that it can make their lives easier. You know, families are, are working, and sometimes childcare can be really expensive. A lot of families don't even know that they qualify for our services, and so it's about making sure that they know it's available.

[00:34:47] Leslie Carmell: And so yeah, I think, you know, it's one of the great things, um, one of my favorite things about our organization is that, you know, I have the most amazing mission-driven colleagues. I think everyone that works for this organization cares about the families. We wanna [00:35:00] make sure that we're able to serve them.

[00:35:01] Leslie Carmell: Um, so, you know, it is, it is different

[00:35:05] Bob Ruffolo: Well, it, it is and it, it isn't because I, I think just all brands are trying ... That, that, you know, one of the things we talk about is that you have to have a great business that, with a great promise, and you certainly do. And I think there's so many great businesses that are still struggling to, to, to break through and get as many eyeballs and as much attention, and so they can go and, and interact with the people that can benefit from what this company does, whether for-profit, nonprofit, whatever it is.

[00:35:36] Bob Ruffolo: So I think there's a lot of synergies to what we do with many of our clients. Um, you guys happen to be very successful in, in scaling nonprofit, but there's a lot of synergies there. Um, and we're just honored to be able to, to be part of this journey with you and then the, the incredible work that you guys are doing

[00:35:54] Alice Lai: Um, I would say the website sort of project was really like taking our website from like the [00:36:00] Dark Ages to like modern times, and it's really been an inspiration and a model for how we can do that in other places around the organization as well

[00:36:10] Bob Ruffolo: Now, have you guys seen an uptick in enrollment? Have, I mean, it might be too soon. Have you seen anything that you're like, "Wow, this is like, this is really working"?

[00:36:19] Alice Lai: So it's a very good question with a complex answer. Um, you know, we are in an enrollment, uh, crisis right now. Here in California, it's really expensive to live here. Lots of families are leaving for other states. It's really expensive to have kids here, so there's, like, a decrease in the actual child age population that we typically serve.

[00:36:41] Alice Lai: Um, in addition to that, that third challenge in our enrollment landscape is that traditional four-year-old child population has now shifted a lot, in large part to the school district, to transitional kindergarten programs. And so we are making gains with the website, and we're increasing website visitors, [00:37:00] increa-

[00:37:01] Bob Ruffolo: you're countering the, yeah,

[00:37:02] Alice Lai: We're, you know, it's, it's really made a significant input, but we're still sort of seeing families leave for lots of different reasons, many of which are, you know, outside of our control due to sort of the economy and inflation and things like that as well. But the early signs are trending positively. Um, you know, we are looking at website visitors.

[00:37:22] Alice Lai: We had a large uptick this past August. Um, one sort of short story I have for you is, you know, with the interest form now on the website, now connected to HubSpot, prior to our website migration, um, our intake team, our education advisors, were available Monday through Thursday, 8:00 to 5:00. Um, because anecdotally, you know, we are a four-day work week, and we heard prior to when I started just, you know, not, we don't have a lot of families calling on Fridays.

[00:37:48] Alice Lai: Like, you know, we don't need to, like, have a live person answering calls on Fridays. Um, and once the interest form was on our website and I could track daily, like, we started seeing, you know, families [00:38:00] calling on Fridays.

[00:38:00] Bob Ruffolo: Oh, wow

[00:38:01] Alice Lai: so we shifted to having our intake team now being available five days a week, and now that families know that we're available on Fridays, they're calling more.

[00:38:10] Alice Lai: Um, so I think it's those data pieces that are allowing us to make sure, um, we're able to see the larger impact over time. 

[00:38:17] Leslie Carmell: And I think, too, a lot of what we were doing before was anecdotal because we didn't have this, you know, again, CRM wasn't connected to the form that wasn't connected to the website that wasn't connected to the ads.

[00:38:28] Leslie Carmell: Now it's not anecdotal. You know, we used to ask, our intake team would ask when a family called in, "How did you hear about us?" And then you were also reliant on them making sure that they were deciphering the choices correctly and inputting it correctly, and we were tracking. So it was really tough to even measure ROI on, you know, advertising that we were doing.

[00:38:47] Leslie Carmell: Um, you know, signage, banners, just whatever we were doing. Events, uh, uh, you know, attendance at events. Now it's not anecdotal anymore. Now we know exactly what that journey looks like, and that, I think, is [00:39:00] invaluable

[00:39:00] Bob Ruffolo: Amazing. Let me ask you guys this. Um, being that you're nonprofit and you have such a great mission, how can this Endless Customers community support you? Is there anything that we can be doing? If anyone's listening to this and saying, "Listen, I wanna get behind this, this mission as well," what can we do?

[00:39:17] Alice Lai: You want me to start, Leslie? 

[00:39:20] Leslie Carmell: Yeah. 

[00:39:21] Alice Lai: Yes. Um, I think first is to spread the word, right? Like in every state, in every city, no matter where you are, there are organizations like Options for Learning serving and supporting your community. Um, across the entire country we have Early Head Start, Head Start programs, state-funded pre- preschool programs, either state-funded, federally funded.

[00:39:43] Alice Lai: There's an option like Options for Learning near you. If you know a family that is struggling to find quality childcare or to afford quality childcare, or if you know someone who wants to go back to the workforce but feels like they can't because of childcare, [00:40:00] reach out to us. We can direct you to your local agency.

[00:40:04] Alice Lai: Um, there's websites that we can share around how to find organizations like us. But I 

[00:40:08] Bob Ruffolo: is

[00:40:08] Bob Ruffolo: there a website? 'Cause I, I, what I'm saying, I'm thinking about when I share this episode, when it first comes out, I'll put that in my LinkedIn post. I'll put that. So it, what website should I direct the audience to?

[00:40:18] Alice Lai: I will pop it in the chat. We have local resource and referral websites. We have ... It's like a local R and R website. There's one for the entire state of California. You can definitely refer them to us as well. Um, but we can, you know, get you the specific site 'cause it depends on what state you're in.

[00:40:34] Bob Ruffolo: For sure. Great

[00:40:35] Alice Lai: a lot of resources out there, and I think for nonprofits, we don't traditionally invest a lot in marketing and bringing awareness because we're trying to direct our funds to the communities and the families that we serve.

[00:40:46] Alice Lai: So I think spreading the word around, um, resources and organizations like that, like us being available is, is a great way to help us. 

[00:40:54] Leslie Carmell: I think it's those partnerships that are really important. Um, and so finding ways to leverage that because, you [00:41:00] know, a lot of, um, families that qualify for our services are those that are at risk.

[00:41:04] Leslie Carmell: Um, you know, families that are unhoused. Um, you know, uh, but al- but also families that are, um, providing for foster children, you know, that have brought them into their lives. And I know, you know, one of our, um, our family leaders, we have a, a family council, a parent council, um, he'd gone back to school. So we were able to provide a really valuable resource for him so he could go back to school and better himself and, you know, be able to meet his family's goals.

[00:41:33] Leslie Carmell: And so I think, um, just finding ways to leverage those, um, the partnerships, like Al said, to spread the word and make sure that people are aware. 

[00:41:41] Alice Lai: One little tidbit I'll add, P- Bob, is, like, in California, so I think a lot of families are like, "Great, I'll share that with anyone that I might know, but I don't think I qualify."

[00:41:50] Alice Lai: So one of the things we learned about from Marcus, from Endless customer, is the idea of, like, a pricing calculator, an eligibility calculator, which we are in the final phases of finalizing [00:42:00] and putting on our website.

[00:42:00] Alice Lai: So a family

[00:42:02] Alice Lai: on their own, put in their ZIP code, put in their income, put in how much money they make.

[00:42:06] Alice Lai: You know, do they qualify for, um, like CalWORKS or, you know, any other sort of state-based, um, program, right? So there's that piece. But also in California, a family of three can make $130,000 and still qualify for one of our programs. So I think debunking that myth of, like, how you qualify for programs like ours.

[00:42:26] Alice Lai: Because had I known when I was a new mom, I would have definitely checked us out because- Mm-hmm ... there's, it's a lot bigger and vast in terms of the support that we offer as an organization than most people think. I think a lot of people think, "Oh, that's for someone over there. It doesn't apply to me." But we actually support a wide variety of families.

[00:42:43] Leslie Carmell: And I think that was, uh, you know, something that Endless customers had an impact, um, pardon the pun. But it was ... You know, we used to shy away from that also, um, because we thought, gosh, you know, our eligibility, the requirements for our different programs, it's so complex, and there's not an easy way to put this on the [00:43:00] website.

[00:43:00] Leslie Carmell: There's not ... You know, we can't just put a chart. We can't ... You know. But now we're realizing we can't afford not to do that. So we're finding a way to make that resource available, and that's, that's the big shift as well

[00:43:11] Bob Ruffolo: Yeah. Well, you know, that's, it's-- Another thing we talk about, um, is the pride cycle, and you guys are coming from a spot where you have to take immediate action. You mentioned this enrollment crisis. It's forcing you to do things that you maybe otherwise wouldn't be doing. You're not coming from a place of complacency, and, and you're innovating.

[00:43:30] Bob Ruffolo: And the fact that you're finding... What we love about They Ask You Answer, now Endless Customers, is the principles are timeless. And we've watched people now take these principles and adapt them in so many different ways because it just takes a little bit of creativity. It's like, you know, we don't need a pricing calculator.

[00:43:46] Bob Ruffolo: No, we can take that concept and build, you know, an eligibility calculator. Uh, we've seen people also take the, the, the principles of this and say, "Well, how can we apply this for recruiting?" And it's just, it's interesting to see 'cause the principles really do work. It's just, [00:44:00] and it almost gets down to common sense.

[00:44:02] Bob Ruffolo: It's just like this is the way people make decisions, and this is the information they need. These are the questions they have. We should be answering them, and you guys are doing that really, really, really well.

[00:44:10] Leslie Carmell: And I think there's one aspect too that, you know, a lot of businesses may not think about in that, you know, they look at this as sort of a sales approach. We also look at it as a retention approach. So where Alice is dealing more with sort of the front end and getting the families in, my team works more with the teams that then serve the families once they're enrolled.

[00:44:29] Leslie Carmell: And I ... This doesn't stop there. So we're working with those teams to take a look at the messaging that they're sending to families, and how can that be aligned with them as customers even once they're already enrolled? How can we improve that? How can we elevate that experience for them? Um, and so I think that's something that other businesses could also, um, integrate into their, into their companies.

[00:44:51] Bob Ruffolo: Excellent. Well, I am so happy that you guys are happy with the work that we did for you, uh, and that we're doing together. I'm so proud of [00:45:00] what you guys are learning and implementing, and you are still very early in this journey. Um, I predict really big things for you as you continue on this Endless Customers journey.

[00:45:09] Bob Ruffolo: You have a great team that you're working with. I think the world of Allison. I think the world of Brian. I know you've worked with Mandy a little bit. I know you also worked with, um, Mandy, but, um, uh, um, Mary and Janet, I believe you guys work with them as well. The-- I'm sure Melissa and the web team are all involved.

[00:45:24] Bob Ruffolo: So, uh, these are all people I've had the pleasure of working with now for five, 10 years. So, um, I'm, I'm so happy that you guys are having a great experience, and I wish you all nothing but the best as you get through this crisis and, and really come out the other side as the, the leader in your space, which is what you're doing.

[00:45:39] Alice Lai: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:41] Bob Ruffolo: All right. Well, thank you so much for joining the episode today, and, uh, um, hopefully we'll have you guys back on here if you'd like in, in maybe a, a few more months, so we can hear how your journey is going

[00:45:51] Alice Lai: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:45:52] Leslie Carmell: That would be great. Thank you so much

[00:45:53] Bob Ruffolo: All right. Thank you guys so much. This has been another episode of the Endless Customers Podcast, and we will see you at the next episode 

[00:45:59] Stephanie Baiocchi: [00:46:00] If you liked this episode, please take a minute to leave us a review. Thanks for checking out the Endless Customers Podcast.