Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at black Tech three money. We are
Speaker 1: headed to the end.
Speaker 2: Of the year, and I got a special episode for you.
Speaker 1: In that regard.
Speaker 2: So when I'm making content, I'm thinking about what are
Speaker 2: the question? So I don't make content in a vacuum.
Speaker 2: Let me start there. I don't make content in a vacuum.
Speaker 2: And what I mean by that is, I don't just
Speaker 2: sit around thinking about what should I talk about or
Speaker 2: you know, what should I make a podcast about? Or
Speaker 2: what should I make a video about or etc. I'm
Speaker 2: typically in the mind of what question am I being
Speaker 2: asked most frequently? Or what is an interesting question I've
Speaker 2: been asked recently, or what are things that I'm currently
Speaker 2: engaged with doing like what activities are currently dominating my
Speaker 2: to do list? And about this time of year every
Speaker 2: year since I've been running a business and growing a business,
Speaker 2: I should say, not just running a business, but as
Speaker 2: the businesses have been growing, I'm thinking, you know, as
Speaker 2: I get through, like midway through the fourth quarter, I
Speaker 2: start to evaluate the systems that I'm using, the technology
Speaker 2: that I'm using to run my business. And so what
Speaker 2: I want to talk about today is an exercise that
Speaker 2: I'm going through and that is you know, in December November,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about what is the what are the things
Speaker 2: that I'm using to run my business.
Speaker 1: And could they.
Speaker 2: Be either switched out to something that is actually appropriate
Speaker 2: for our work, because I'm sure I like some points
Speaker 2: in the year, like whatever you're using in whatever category,
Speaker 2: you know, you may find something like, dang, I wish
Speaker 2: this app did this, or I wish it was more
Speaker 2: easy or more efficient to do this in this app,
Speaker 2: or I wish I had something that was less expensive,
Speaker 2: or I wish I had something that was more robust,
Speaker 2: or something that better fit and better suited your needs.
Speaker 2: And so what I want to talk about today is
Speaker 2: ten categories and concepts for you to consider as you
Speaker 2: evaluate your tech stack at the end of the year,
Speaker 2: because the end of the year is probably the best
Speaker 2: time for you to make a switch. Start so January one,
Speaker 2: you're all new. It is very difficult for me, particularly
Speaker 2: because at least one of my businesses have a customer
Speaker 2: facing side and we hold a lot of customer data.
Speaker 2: So for us to make a switch on our pos
Speaker 2: midyear is a feat and it's not something that's pleasant
Speaker 2: to do at any point, So why make it harder
Speaker 2: on yourself by doing it in the middle of the year.
Speaker 1: So it's best.
Speaker 2: To make a clean break December thirty first to January first,
Speaker 2: so that your staff can get time to prepare with it.
Speaker 2: Your customers or members or users or clients, they have
Speaker 2: an opportunity to recognize that there's a new day. And
Speaker 2: so some of the things I'm going to talk about
Speaker 2: today are things that I use particularly, But I'm not
Speaker 2: going to give you like a bunch of app recommendations
Speaker 2: because it's like super simple to just go to Google
Speaker 2: and say what is the best software for X. So
Speaker 2: what I want to give you are like categories of
Speaker 2: things in your texta that you should be thinking about
Speaker 2: evaluating as you cross from twenty twenty three to twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four. And this is something that will be applicable
Speaker 2: for the foreseeable future. So every year, you know this
Speaker 2: is an episode that would be relevant to this time
Speaker 2: of year. When you can make a clean break from
Speaker 2: what you were doing to what you could be doing,
Speaker 2: that is a better situation for your growth. Here's what's
Speaker 2: important about that is I won't get number one. I
Speaker 2: won't get into a bunch of features of why I
Speaker 2: a bunch of reasons on why I graduated or transitioned,
Speaker 2: as the reasons I graduated from one app to the
Speaker 2: next might not still be applicable today. Like sometimes some
Speaker 2: of the apps that I used to use and switched
Speaker 2: off of because they didn't have X and Y feature,
Speaker 2: they might have those features today. So that's why I'm
Speaker 2: not going to spend like a lot of time like
Speaker 2: giving you actual app recommendations. I may mention some, but
Speaker 2: I'm not going to give you. This is not an
Speaker 2: app recommendation episode. This is about the categories. And further,
Speaker 2: some of the software I used or used simply just
Speaker 2: didn't meet the needs of my growing business, or I
Speaker 2: could foresee that they wouldn't meet the needs ultimately going
Speaker 2: into the next period of growth, whether that be the
Speaker 2: next year or next whatever period however you want to
Speaker 2: determine that. But I could see growth on the horizon.
Speaker 2: So it's appropriate for me at this stage at the
Speaker 2: end of the year, if I'm deciding to make a
Speaker 2: clean break on January one, it's appropriate for me to
Speaker 2: evaluate the forthcoming needs so I can meet the demands
Speaker 2: that my business is going to have before they become problematic.
Speaker 2: So this is again, this is an appropriate time for
Speaker 2: you to be thinking about what app what software, what
Speaker 2: technology am I using currently that may not be best suited
Speaker 2: for me going into this next period. So the first
Speaker 2: one I'm going to bring up is like your accounting
Speaker 2: software I used to use, And I don't want to
Speaker 2: like disparage. I'm not disparaging any software. But at the
Speaker 2: time I was using particular software that I might mention
Speaker 2: that I'm not using anymore. It just didn't meet the
Speaker 2: needs I have at the time. And I started it,
Speaker 2: I evaluated it and in methanies, but as my business grew,
Speaker 2: it's no longer methany So I will.
Speaker 1: Start with talking about fresh Books. Fresh Books was.
Speaker 2: Something that it was an accounting software, and it is
Speaker 2: accounting software that I used to use for Creatio, particularly
Speaker 2: my marketing technology production company.
Speaker 1: And so we used to use fresh Books.
Speaker 2: For invoicing, for sending estimates and receiving money and et cetera.
Speaker 2: But as we started to grow and needed more like
Speaker 2: reporting and more balance sheet, more p and L rope bustness,
Speaker 2: we realized that fresh Books wasn't necessarily suited to do
Speaker 2: a lot of that work. Now again, I want to
Speaker 2: emphasize this, which is why I didn't really want to
Speaker 2: talk about particular apps. Some of the stuff that I
Speaker 2: left for jumping the ship from fresh Books to quick Books.
Speaker 2: Fresh Books could very well have that today at the
Speaker 2: level that I could use it today, but at the
Speaker 2: time when I transitioned, it didn't. And again, so it's
Speaker 2: like no shade on Freshbooks. So if you are looking
Speaker 2: for an accounting software accounting platform to use, I highly
Speaker 2: recommend you at least take a look at fresh Books
Speaker 2: and see if it meets your needs. And so I
Speaker 2: graduated because there were certain things I saw on the
Speaker 2: horizon which would determine I needed more reporting, more again,
Speaker 2: more balance sheet information and feature sets, more P and
Speaker 2: L stuff, more contractor and client you know, break down
Speaker 2: if I wanted to filter down to who I paid,
Speaker 2: why I paid them, which account I paid them, from
Speaker 2: all these different things to the level I needed one
Speaker 2: piece of software didn't have it anymore, and it was
Speaker 2: time to make a clean break.
Speaker 1: And it was easiest to do that.
Speaker 2: From December thirty first to January first, the next one up,
Speaker 2: I would talk about project management.
Speaker 1: Software we used to use.
Speaker 2: Again, no shade on them. In a beautiful company, we
Speaker 2: used to use base Camp from thirty seven Signals. I'm
Speaker 2: not even sure if they're still called thirty seven Signals,
Speaker 2: but we used to use base Camp to manage our
Speaker 2: projects in my company. And so now today we use Asana.
Speaker 2: And the one of the things that was problematic when
Speaker 2: we were growing.
Speaker 1: Is there.
Speaker 2: And there's actually a principle at thirty seven Signals. There's
Speaker 2: a book that they wrote.
Speaker 1: Sometimes let me find the name of the book, because
Speaker 1: it was it was rework. So they wrote this book
Speaker 1: called Rework.
Speaker 2: Back in twenty ten, and I'm going to paraphrase one
Speaker 2: of the principles in and so one of the principles
Speaker 2: was like they built what they built and if it
Speaker 2: works for you, it works for you. Like they didn't.
Speaker 2: They didn't lean into like a lot of customer feedback
Speaker 2: and client feedback to building what they were going to
Speaker 2: put out in the world. They built a lot of
Speaker 2: their software for them to use and then they distributed
Speaker 2: it via the internet. So software, so if it worked
Speaker 2: for you, also that's it. That was awesome, and so
Speaker 2: you could buy it, you could subscribe to it. But
Speaker 2: they didn't like lean on a lot of feedback and
Speaker 2: add a lot of features based on the demand of people.
Speaker 2: Their position was, if what we offer works for you,
Speaker 2: it works for you amazing. If it doesn't, we're not
Speaker 2: for you. And there's an admirable part of that that
Speaker 2: I believe, and there's also parts that just doesn't work
Speaker 2: for me. So we decided to make the jump to Asama,
Speaker 2: which had more features, and I had just a little
Speaker 2: bit more experience because other businesses that I'm into we
Speaker 2: used the Sauna, so I had like a preview of
Speaker 2: the behind the scenes, and I recognized that this would
Speaker 2: also work for Creatio, which is again my marketing technology
Speaker 2: production agency, and so I highly recommend that you if
Speaker 2: you don't have a project management system, you definitely need
Speaker 2: to get one, probably in almost any business you're in.
Speaker 2: Like at toll House, we use Trello because Asauna is
Speaker 2: way too robust for is way too complex, too many
Speaker 2: features for what we need for a toe House, which
Speaker 2: is a private member social club. So Asauna works for
Speaker 2: my marketing technology production agency, is not a fit for
Speaker 2: my hospitality and food and beverage operation. So that's what
Speaker 2: we use over there, and that's Trello because it just
Speaker 2: allows us to simply go in and make edits to boards,
Speaker 2: switch things from more on board to the next depending
Speaker 2: on which status it's in status it is in, and
Speaker 2: that's what we do. So if you don't have a
Speaker 2: project management system at whatever stage you're at, even if
Speaker 2: it's just an idea, it helps you get some organization
Speaker 2: around your thoughts and if you're actively managing your business,
Speaker 2: it helps keep people accountable to where they have responsibility
Speaker 2: and so you can have insight because if you're asking
Speaker 2: everybody or anybody every day what they're working on, where
Speaker 2: they're at in the process and etc. You shouldn't have
Speaker 2: to do that. You should be able to just log
Speaker 2: into a dashboard and see where so and so is
Speaker 2: on this particular task, where the project stands in etc.
Speaker 2: So you should just be able to have a dashboard
Speaker 2: so you can have a high level view of where
Speaker 2: your business is, what are the ongoing projects in, what
Speaker 2: state are they in. So project management software we started
Speaker 2: with Basekent. We're now using Asanna in one of my businesses.
Speaker 2: In another business we use Trello. It works for using
Speaker 2: up is a sales software. So what do you like
Speaker 2: pos like? You know, like, what are you using to
Speaker 2: actually make transactions and so some of these, like with Creatio,
Speaker 2: we're making the transactions by invoicing, so quick Books allows
Speaker 2: us to do that. So not only are we getting
Speaker 2: the accounting features, but we also can you know, use
Speaker 2: the sales features to where I can send you an estimate,
Speaker 2: you can accept that estimate, it automatically converse it over
Speaker 2: to an invoice, you can pay against it right inside
Speaker 2: the same application. It's automatically dumped into the reports and
Speaker 2: et cetera. So I don't have to do anything on
Speaker 2: the toll house side, which is again you know, hand
Speaker 2: in hand combat it's a hospitality, food beverage. We use
Speaker 2: Square and so in side Square we have our customer accounts.
Speaker 2: You can build house accounts in there.
Speaker 1: So you could.
Speaker 2: We don't, but you could allow people to aggregate their
Speaker 2: transactions over a month and just automatically build against their
Speaker 2: credit card which.
Speaker 1: Is on file at the end of the month. We
Speaker 1: don't do that.
Speaker 2: So whenever you come in, you just provide your member
Speaker 2: I D and we just ran the transaction when you're
Speaker 2: done for the day. So but Square is what we
Speaker 2: use so far.
Speaker 1: Now, I had a lot of consternation with some of.
Speaker 2: The issue some of the features or lack of features
Speaker 2: that Square had. But one of the things that I
Speaker 2: have to consider are the issues that I have with
Speaker 2: Square such that it makes sense to transition to another one,
Speaker 2: Because I mentioned, we have a lot of customer accounts
Speaker 2: on here and so there's a very high barrier to
Speaker 2: making that transition. Then it would be if I just
Speaker 2: had a shop that has one transaction and I never
Speaker 2: really see you again, or I don't hold any of
Speaker 2: your customer data. But for me, I invested a lot
Speaker 2: of money in terminals handheld, you know, mobile sales devices,
Speaker 2: and so I need to calculate and I have, you know,
Speaker 2: a bunch of customer I have to calculate, is making
Speaker 2: that change a reasonable ROI? Am I going to realize
Speaker 2: a reasonable ROI in a certain amount of time that
Speaker 2: makes it makes sense for me to change from one
Speaker 2: POS to another POS. Again, it's not just switching up
Speaker 2: the software, but now I also have to buy new
Speaker 2: terminals to be able to go swipe credit cards. So
Speaker 2: those are things that you have to consider and consider
Speaker 2: them diligently. Do your research before you pick one, because
Speaker 2: once you pick one, it is very difficult and costly
Speaker 2: to get out of one, especially if you are building
Speaker 2: relationships with your customers and your clients, if you're just
Speaker 2: doing like one time swipe and keep it moving, it's
Speaker 2: a lot easier for you to make that change. So
Speaker 2: one of the concepts I want you to consider is,
Speaker 2: you know, you really want to build, as you're thinking
Speaker 2: about your systems, a single source of truth. So whether
Speaker 2: that is what it is is a dashboard effectively, so
Speaker 2: a dashboard that you can log in at any time,
Speaker 2: whether it be an app or whether it be you know,
Speaker 2: something you built yourself, like an Excel spreadsheet that has
Speaker 2: things automatically dumping into it in the appropriate spots. No
Speaker 2: matter what your industry, you want something that's either prepackaged
Speaker 2: or something that you built that allows you to have
Speaker 2: a single source of truth. And what I mean by
Speaker 2: that is sometimes like when you're using different pieces of software,
Speaker 2: you know, you might have one customer reference in two
Speaker 2: to three places across different pieces of software, and sometimes
Speaker 2: things will get out of sync and not everything has
Speaker 2: an API to where they can all loop in talk
Speaker 2: to each other. And so what you want to make
Speaker 2: sure of is is my sales reflected appropriately in this
Speaker 2: app versus this app versus this app and one way
Speaker 2: to determine that is by having a single source of
Speaker 2: truth to where I only look at my sales information
Speaker 2: in this application because I know if I look at
Speaker 2: it over there, it might not account for certain variables,
Speaker 2: and I only use that particular app over there for
Speaker 2: such and such thing like For instance, we've been looking
Speaker 2: at seven shifts, which is an app just for scheduling
Speaker 2: our team, So when we're scheduled making next week's schedule
Speaker 2: for when people are going to work at toll house,
Speaker 2: seven shifts is a remarkable scheduling app. And they also
Speaker 2: do payroll. They also do tip pooling. They also do
Speaker 2: also do also do they do a bunch of things.
Speaker 2: We didn't want to use them for all those other things,
Speaker 2: but no matter what, no matter that, we decided to
Speaker 2: use them for those other things once we integrated.
Speaker 1: It with Square.
Speaker 2: It's pulling all this other information, but it doesn't account
Speaker 2: for all the other variables Square is accounting for. So
Speaker 2: I have to be determined and disciplined and only paying
Speaker 2: attention in seven shifts to the scheduling information because I
Speaker 2: know the labor information and the sales information that it's
Speaker 2: automatically pulling. No choice of mind. But just because they're integrated,
Speaker 2: the information that is pulling from over there is not
Speaker 2: going to be accurate.
Speaker 1: It might be close, it.
Speaker 2: Might be correct at some point or another, but my
Speaker 2: single source of truth regarding sales is in Square and
Speaker 2: that's the only place I'm gonna look for an accurate
Speaker 2: accounting of our sales information. So I said all that
Speaker 2: to say, what you want is to build a dashboard
Speaker 2: or find some software that you trust that is hopefully
Speaker 2: uh industry specific to whatever it is you're building. And
Speaker 2: most industries have these. Whether you're in trucking, or you're
Speaker 2: in marijuana, or you're in you know.
Speaker 1: Food and beverage or whatever.
Speaker 2: Most industries have dedicated and software built for that particular
Speaker 2: industry and the nuances that relate to that industry. So
Speaker 2: you want to find one that is most appropriate to
Speaker 2: your industry as you can, and then utilize just that
Speaker 2: for the truth about what's happening in your business. The
Speaker 2: next one up, I want to give you another concept,
Speaker 2: and that was you know, these are why these are
Speaker 2: worthy investments because sometimes, you know, even in the beginning
Speaker 2: of my businesses, I was notorious and serious about hacking
Speaker 2: together my own stuff and at some point you have
Speaker 2: to invest in actual technologies that help you do these
Speaker 2: things better and help you see around the corners that
Speaker 2: you might not even recognize. So, especially when you're venturing
Speaker 2: into a new industry, these apps and these softwares, these
Speaker 2: applications might have you do things inside them that you
Speaker 2: didn't even consider were important to do regarding that industry.
Speaker 2: And so again, just to give you an example, let's
Speaker 2: let's pull Creatio. So CREATI against a full service marketing
Speaker 2: technology production agency, and so I didn't know how to
Speaker 2: do forecasting. But if you use a particular app based
Speaker 2: on your sales, you know, and if you're using it,
Speaker 2: especially over time, it starts to learn, Hey, you know,
Speaker 2: in the end of the third quarter beginning of the
Speaker 2: fourth quarter, your sales spike, and you should expect to
Speaker 2: be at these particular numbers, you know, based on your
Speaker 2: growth over time, and so then you can plan accordingly.
Speaker 2: You might need to staff up, you might need to
Speaker 2: staff down, you might need to invest in new equipment,
Speaker 2: you might need to you know, start to talk to
Speaker 2: different types of clients and customers. And so those are
Speaker 2: insights that I would not have been able without the
Speaker 2: assistance of other technologies to be able to put together
Speaker 2: on my own. I may have known in my mind
Speaker 2: that we grow, we spike in business around certain times
Speaker 2: of the year, but to actually have insights into what
Speaker 2: is going on to in my business.
Speaker 1: Is very, very helpful. So these are worthy investments to make.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: My point there is there does come a stage in
Speaker 2: your business to where you cannot just continue to do
Speaker 2: things alone. And here is a great segue into this
Speaker 2: next one. And so I do not allow anybody on
Speaker 2: my staffs, any of my staffs to create individual documents
Speaker 2: and to email them to people. For instance, you cannot
Speaker 2: on my team create a word document and email it
Speaker 2: to me. If you are creating anything in the toe
Speaker 2: house team creative team, even is better be on a
Speaker 2: Google doc or Google Drive, because I don't want multiple
Speaker 2: versions of a document out there in the wild. Because
Speaker 2: what happens is is I'm going to create a word document.
Speaker 2: You know, I have to pick on Microsoft, but I'm
Speaker 2: going to create a word document and I'm going to
Speaker 2: email you that document as an attachment, and you might
Speaker 2: make changes to it. I might make changes to it
Speaker 2: after I emailed it to you. And now guess what,
Speaker 2: there's two versions of that document, and potentially three versions
Speaker 2: of that document because you might have made a change.
Speaker 2: I might have made a change, and now we got
Speaker 2: to reconcile the changes. And so I don't allow people
Speaker 2: to do that in my team. So if you're working
Speaker 2: with documents, or if you're working with spreadsheets, or if
Speaker 2: you're working with presentations, on my teams, we use Google Drive.
Speaker 2: So I'm using Google Pages to create these things. I'm
Speaker 2: using Google Sheets to make these things. I'm using all
Speaker 2: of Google's Google's offering of different applications to create our stuff.
Speaker 2: So that way, if you want to make a change,
Speaker 2: I can see you making a change on this one
Speaker 2: single document, and I can see the whole history of
Speaker 2: changes that have been made, and I can go backward
Speaker 2: in time. If I want to change back to a
Speaker 2: previous version of this thing, I can see the last
Speaker 2: time you logged in to look at it. If I'm
Speaker 2: just emailing you attachments, you lose that ability to be
Speaker 2: able to make sure that you have one document that
Speaker 2: is accurate. And so whether you decide to use Google
Speaker 2: Drive or you decide to use Microsoft Office and send
Speaker 2: links to documents and etc. Instead of attachments to documents,
Speaker 2: these are things that are much more suited to making
Speaker 2: sure you stay streamlined. I will say, though, and this
Speaker 2: is again, I did not mean to say anything negative
Speaker 2: about Microsoft. Is Microsoft's fantastic company, and I will give
Speaker 2: them a little bit of kudos in just this way.
Speaker 1: I believe the Outlook app for.
Speaker 2: iPhone is hands down the best email client there is
Speaker 2: for business. So if you are looking for if you're
Speaker 2: looking for something better, even if you like the one
Speaker 2: you got, the Outlook app for iPhone, if you're in business,
Speaker 2: hands down the best email client. The next one is
Speaker 2: social media management. And so I used to number one,
Speaker 2: I'm sitting in front of.
Speaker 1: My desktop all day long.
Speaker 2: My laptop is, but I'm sitting in front of a
Speaker 2: computer all day law. I'm not always in my phone,
Speaker 2: it's always with me, but I'm managing several businesses, so
Speaker 2: it's often a lot easier to do tasks via my laptop.
Speaker 2: And so I used to publish, you know, posts to
Speaker 2: our many our various social media accounts directly on the
Speaker 2: desktop clients, whether it was Facebook or whether it was Twitter.
Speaker 2: Twitter used to have a nice Mac compatible desktop client.
Speaker 2: They don't anymore. X X doesn't have one.
Speaker 1: Anymore.
Speaker 2: So now we use buffer for particularly our LinkedIn content
Speaker 2: and that's LinkedIn. Yeah so cause Facebook launched Facebook Business Suite,
Speaker 2: which allows us to do it right inside the Business Suite,
Speaker 2: and so I don't have to go to an external
Speaker 2: third party source to schedule social media content. Facebook offers
Speaker 2: that they didn't used to. They didn't always offer this.
Speaker 2: We used to do everything via Buffer or Who's Sweet.
Speaker 2: Now we just use Buffer. And the reason we use
Speaker 2: Buffer versus who Sweet is Buffer was just less expensive
Speaker 2: and for the types of features that we needed Buffer
Speaker 2: suffice who Sweet is a fantastic app also, but it
Speaker 2: was just more expensive for the team that we had.
Speaker 2: But you should have something that allows you to plan
Speaker 2: out all of your social media content. You should not,
Speaker 2: as a business owner, be sitting on your phone, Hey,
Speaker 2: I gotta get a post up before the end of
Speaker 2: the day, like you should really legit, be spending a
Speaker 2: Sunday night or a Sunday afternoon or a Saturday night
Speaker 2: scheduling out into the next week so that it's just automatic,
Speaker 2: happening automatically, Because unless you have something that you just
Speaker 2: really want to post because it's something cool that happens
Speaker 2: in the moment you really want to think more strategically
Speaker 2: about your social media content, and the way to do
Speaker 2: that is to sit down and actually plan it. And
Speaker 2: so planning it in software that allows it to be
Speaker 2: automatically posted without you having to come back and post
Speaker 2: it manually is very very good and efficient use of
Speaker 2: your time and dollars. And so again, Buffer is one
Speaker 2: that allows you to do this. You can set on
Speaker 2: Buffer not to sell I'm not trying to sell it,
Speaker 2: but I love that I can set the times of
Speaker 2: day that our posts typically work on, and it'll even
Speaker 2: give you insights on when posts. It recommends that you
Speaker 2: schedule posts for and you can schedule out as far
Speaker 2: into the future as you like. And so and you
Speaker 2: can have multiple social media accounts in it, so I
Speaker 2: can see everything right there on one dashboard, whether it
Speaker 2: be Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest, even LinkedIn all of these,
Speaker 2: I can see YouTube, I can see them all on
Speaker 2: one dashboard, and I can see the calendar of content
Speaker 2: that is set to publish out in the future. One
Speaker 2: more I would give you maybe two more. I'll give
Speaker 2: you another. One that you really need to think about
Speaker 2: as we cross over into a new year is purchasing
Speaker 2: and keeping track of your purchasing. I used to up
Speaker 2: until maybe even just a couple of months ago, all
Speaker 2: of our purchases on Amazon would be like on an
Speaker 2: individual Amazon account. Now I was using a business card,
Speaker 2: my credit card, but I was not using Amazon Business
Speaker 2: the business suite, which allowed me to create delegations, It
Speaker 2: allowed me to create departments, it allowed me to create
Speaker 2: cost centers. And so for this one, it makes the
Speaker 2: most sense to talk about toll House. And so when
Speaker 2: we were building Tollhouse, I was using my Amazon account with.
Speaker 1: The credit card, the appropriate credit cards, so that's the.
Speaker 2: Right thing to do. But I was using a regular
Speaker 2: Amazon account to buy things that toll House needed. Whether
Speaker 2: those were cogs, those were calls of this old whether
Speaker 2: they were like things that we were reselling, or ingredients
Speaker 2: or whatever that we needed to make the things. I
Speaker 2: was using the regular Amazon account. But now with an
Speaker 2: Amazon Business account and all other accounts that you can imagine,
Speaker 2: it allows me to actually do run the reports that
Speaker 2: I need come tax time and business evaluation time, and
Speaker 2: so I can see if we bought a particular thing
Speaker 2: from Amazon for this particular department or space or location
Speaker 2: inside a Toehouse. Toll House has five bars, five lounges,
Speaker 2: a coffee house, a cigar lounge, a jazz club, a
Speaker 2: coworking space, all inside of one footprints twenty five thousand
Speaker 2: square feet, and so each of those locations, each of
Speaker 2: those bars are run like a different revenue center. And
Speaker 2: so previously I would not be able to buy some
Speaker 2: equipment on Amazon and dedicate it to a particular revenue center.
Speaker 2: Now on Amazon, because I'm using the Amazon Suite, I
Speaker 2: can say, Okay, I'm buying this particular thing using the
Speaker 2: same credit card, and I can put multiple ones on
Speaker 2: there for my team to even if they have to
Speaker 2: make purchases. I'm using this and about I'm going to
Speaker 2: attribute this cost to a particular place inside tohouse. So
Speaker 2: at the end of the year or whenever you want,
Speaker 2: I can go look and see how much money I
Speaker 2: spent in this particular department based on the things that
Speaker 2: I'm buying. You can't do that with just a regular
Speaker 2: Amazon account, and so that's just Amazon. So if you're
Speaker 2: buying things from other outlets and other retailers, look and
Speaker 2: see if they have business accounts that you can set up.
Speaker 2: Often they will want documentation like you know, they want
Speaker 2: to see your corporate structure, those documents from the state
Speaker 2: that you're in. They may want to see your EI
Speaker 2: in documents. They want to see some sort of letterhead
Speaker 2: that says you are authorized to make transactions on behalf
Speaker 2: of this company. But the reason why you want to
Speaker 2: do that is not only for the reporting, but often
Speaker 2: they will have B to B discounts because they want
Speaker 2: to do business with businesses, and so there's there are
Speaker 2: many websites that will allow you to get ten percent off,
Speaker 2: fifteen percent off just because you're a business. And so
Speaker 2: that's something that you think about how you're purchasing, not
Speaker 2: just be purchasing properly using a company card, but also
Speaker 2: what type of account you're using on many of these websites,
Speaker 2: you don't want to just use these as individual personal accounts.
Speaker 2: See if they have professional business accounts that you can
Speaker 2: set up once you get your corporation documentation in order.
Speaker 2: Last one I'll give you is help desk software. So
Speaker 2: we currently at toe house, if you ever email the
Speaker 2: front of house, it automatically goes into our help desk software.
Speaker 2: I believe today we use fresh Desk, So if you
Speaker 2: email a specific email address that we created for a
Speaker 2: toe house, a ticket is automatically created. And the reason
Speaker 2: for the reason why this is important is because in
Speaker 2: the earlier days, months ago, not too long ago, because
Speaker 2: I remember the pain and heartache of this, we would
Speaker 2: get all these emails inbound from either members or people
Speaker 2: who wanted to be members, or people who have a
Speaker 2: members and we were always chasing down. There were several
Speaker 2: of us that managed the front of house email address,
Speaker 2: and so we would get these emails and we would
Speaker 2: believe that somebody responded to it, but we didn't know
Speaker 2: if somebody responded to it, and so and we didn't
Speaker 2: know how long it took, or we didn't know what
Speaker 2: they said, and so you would all I would always
Speaker 2: have the director that if anybody emails somebody BCC me,
Speaker 2: I want to see all the emails that goes out.
Speaker 2: And so that is not like a full proof system.
Speaker 2: And so a fool proof system is to actually use software.
Speaker 2: And so sometimes they would becc meet, sometimes they will
Speaker 2: forget to sometimes it got lost in the shuffle, whatever happened.
Speaker 2: But now using the help desk software, we can all
Speaker 2: see when somebody emails this particular email address that we
Speaker 2: created our front of house email address. It's automatically a ticket,
Speaker 2: so we know that the ticket is still open and
Speaker 2: hasn't been responded to, or if it's pending we're waiting
Speaker 2: for a response from the member or the client, or
Speaker 2: if it's been closed. Hey, this thing has been handled,
Speaker 2: and I can go see the whole chain, the whole
Speaker 2: thread of conversation that went back and forth, which also
Speaker 2: allows me to ensure that we're responding appropriately in the tone,
Speaker 2: in the carefulness, in the level of care and respect
Speaker 2: that we have for our members. I can see it.
Speaker 2: So if we're just diving into emails with no salutation,
Speaker 2: we don't do that at toll house. And if I
Speaker 2: see that, I can chime in directly to the person
Speaker 2: who respond to and say, hey, when we respond to emails,
Speaker 2: this is how they should look. You should give a greeting,
Speaker 2: give a salutation, say their name, all of these different things.
Speaker 2: So it allows me to create processes and operations.
Speaker 1: And I leave you with.
Speaker 2: This particular thing. This whole episode is about a business
Speaker 2: principle that I thoroughly believe in because I found it
Speaker 2: to be true and every the successful business owners founders
Speaker 2: at whatever level they are at all adhere to it,
Speaker 2: whether they cognitatively do it or not. Is I believe
Speaker 2: you can run a business without processes and operations, but
Speaker 2: you cannot grow on without processes in operations. So this
Speaker 2: entire episode is for people who want to grow. If
Speaker 2: you are happy in your corner of the universe doing
Speaker 2: your thing in the lifestyle company that you know, it
Speaker 2: pays your particular home bills, you might employ you and
Speaker 2: your kid.
Speaker 1: But if you are.
Speaker 2: Trying to grow, processes and operations and all the ways
Speaker 2: that you run your business cannot be in your mind.
Speaker 2: They need to be written down somewhere, particularly like something
Speaker 2: that just shareable. And so it is important that you
Speaker 2: get your business out of your head into a system.
Speaker 2: And so I hope you get something out of this episode.
Speaker 2: I spend a lot of time on this one because
Speaker 2: I actually have to do a whole bunch of note
Speaker 2: taking in bullet points because I live this every day.
Speaker 2: And so I hope that you got something out of it.
Speaker 2: If you did hit me in my DM on Instagram,
Speaker 2: I'm at will Lucas. You don't even have to actually
Speaker 2: even DM me. I might even just make a post
Speaker 2: so you can just put it right in the comments
Speaker 2: on the post, but I do hope you got something
Speaker 2: out of it. If you know somebody who would have
Speaker 2: benefit from this episode, also please share this with them.
Speaker 1: So black tech, green money. I'm well, Lucas