Speaker 1: Will Lucas here, Black Tech, Green Money here for another week.
Speaker 1: I'm super excited to get a chance to talk to
Speaker 1: you guys. It's one of my favorite things to do,
Speaker 1: is this podcast, and so thank you for being a
Speaker 1: part of this community. Next week we go up in Austin.
Speaker 1: I am afro Tech is my favorite conference obviously period.
Speaker 1: But it's just a time where I get to see
Speaker 1: people who look like me in the tech universe, all
Speaker 1: in one place, all talking about the same things, trying
Speaker 1: to do this thing together, trying to change the world
Speaker 1: for the better together. And it's empowering sessions, it's fireside chats,
Speaker 1: musical experiences. It's the place for if you are a
Speaker 1: ticket holder, then you're gonna gain knowledge from industry experts.
Speaker 1: You're gonna maximize opportunities that can propel your career. You're
Speaker 1: gonna find your squad. That's why we go to afro
Speaker 1: Tech because we can find the people who we can
Speaker 1: go along this journey with lifelong thought partners. Friends. You're
Speaker 1: gonna find them at afro Tech. Now. Last year, I
Speaker 1: l afro Tech became not just a tech conference but
Speaker 1: also a music conference, and we're gonna build on that
Speaker 1: this year, we've already announced artists. Rick Ross is gonna
Speaker 1: be there, hustler music. I already told y'all last week
Speaker 1: it's my favorite type of hip hop, hustler music. And
Speaker 1: Rick Ross is at the Pinnacle, Jadakiss will be there
Speaker 1: and others. And then we just announced a couple of
Speaker 1: days ago that Sweetie is gonna be there. So that's
Speaker 1: gonna be big. The last day of afro Tech one
Speaker 1: like the penultimate day to cap your entire week. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be an incredible experience. And so one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things I mentioned this before about afro Tech last
Speaker 1: year was at the wild At show is you're sitting
Speaker 1: there in this conference, you know, I sitting Nigga standing
Speaker 1: there at this that's this concert. But the whole entire
Speaker 1: audience of the concert is black people number one, but
Speaker 1: accomplished black people. I mean, there are physicians in this audience,
Speaker 1: There are engineers in this audience, There are startup founders
Speaker 1: in this audience. There are people trying to figure it
Speaker 1: out in the audience. They are you know, just you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they work in HR at some tech company or
Speaker 1: some you know, startup or whatever, but it's it's a
Speaker 1: seed full of us, you know, listening to this music,
Speaker 1: having this you know, united experience, but all of us
Speaker 1: in the entire audience are doing something special and we're
Speaker 1: trying to just you know, be a part of this
Speaker 1: broader community. So it's it's unlike any other concert you
Speaker 1: can go to. So head to afro Tech Conference Experience
Speaker 1: dot afrotech dot com. Register for an all access ticket
Speaker 1: for the entire experience, which includes the afro Tech Music stage.
Speaker 1: You can also register for a different tier like General Admission, Corporate,
Speaker 1: or Executive, And if you've already done that, you can
Speaker 1: add the Afrotech Music later. So if you get to
Speaker 1: afro Tech next week and you're like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I should have added afrotech music, you can just go
Speaker 1: ahead and do it next week. So no shame, nobody's
Speaker 1: gonna look at you strange. You would just you know,
Speaker 1: you relate adopter. It's okay. What else is up afrotech news.
Speaker 1: I'd like to bring you a couple of the biggest
Speaker 1: stories that are on afrotech dot com right now. First
Speaker 1: up is Tyler Perry feels the bidding process for b
Speaker 1: ET was disrespectful. We heard stories earlier this year about
Speaker 1: the efforts to find an a choir for Beet, and
Speaker 1: a few successful black notables had thrown their hat in
Speaker 1: you know and the dollars for the bid, and among
Speaker 1: them were Diddy. Diddy tried to get his hands on it,
Speaker 1: Byron Allen, who's building you know, a significantly large media empire,
Speaker 1: and Tyler Perry, who recently called the process disrespectful. My Paramount,
Speaker 1: which owns the brand, was reportedly in discussions to sell
Speaker 1: their majority while preserving a minority share in the business,
Speaker 1: and according to reports, despite offers they were getting ranging
Speaker 1: from about two billion dollars to three billion dollars, Paramount
Speaker 1: decided to pull their interest in selling the majority. Steak
Speaker 1: INBT Media Group, which consists of the BET channel, BT plus,
Speaker 1: VH one and BT Studios. Now this is old joke.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not a joke. It could also be some
Speaker 1: truth to it that the reason Bill Cosby was found
Speaker 1: himself in so much trouble was that he was about
Speaker 1: to buy NBC. I don't know if you heard. This
Speaker 1: is like an old urban legend. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there was any true to it at all. But the
Speaker 1: reason I bring this up is because you know, it
Speaker 1: is not to defend Bill Cosby in any manner. I
Speaker 1: just missed the Black TV dad that that Black TV
Speaker 1: persona he portrayed, and I only call his name in
Speaker 1: the respect of it is clear that they do not
Speaker 1: want us to own major media platforms. So Tyler Perry said,
Speaker 1: you know the way it happened, and this is a quote.
Speaker 1: Tyler Perry says the quote the way it happened was
Speaker 1: disrespectful in a lot of ways. Don't try to get
Speaker 1: me to pay for something that's not worth anywhere near
Speaker 1: its value. Unquote, that's Tyler Perry talking about the process
Speaker 1: of Eet's purchase was disrespectful. And so next up, there's
Speaker 1: a story up on afrotech afrotech dot com now detailing
Speaker 1: Dion Sanders' net worth. Now I'm interested in this not
Speaker 1: to count another man's pockets, but I do want to
Speaker 1: use this platform to defend Dion in a way. As
Speaker 1: of this recording, my man has had some challenges on
Speaker 1: the football field in recent games, but I want to
Speaker 1: remind people of what he said in his viral YouTube
Speaker 1: videos before the season began. He's a winner. I expect
Speaker 1: to win. His current network sits reportedly around forty five
Speaker 1: million dollars, and much of that can be attributed to
Speaker 1: his you know, multi millionion dollar contracts he has signed
Speaker 1: over the years while playing, but also his appearances as
Speaker 1: a sports analyst for outlets like he's been on ESPN, CBS,
Speaker 1: NFL Network, and sources do know that the NFL Network alone,
Speaker 1: he drew an annual salary of a million dollars as
Speaker 1: an analyst. Now, meanwhile, he coached at Jackson State University,
Speaker 1: he did a four year, one point two million dollar contract.
Speaker 1: When he pivoted to the University of Colorado Boulder, he
Speaker 1: aint a five year deal that was worth nearly thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars, making him the highest paid coach in Colorado history.
Speaker 1: But even on the sideline of the football field, Dion
Speaker 1: is a winner and people have short memories here. Now.
Speaker 1: Colorado just last year won one game and they lost
Speaker 1: eleven games. They were ranked one hundred and twenty eighth
Speaker 1: out of one hundred and thirty one. Right now, year
Speaker 1: one of Dion, they're at the time of this recording
Speaker 1: four and three. Now they've already won just miss way
Speaker 1: through this season, four times as many games as they
Speaker 1: want all last year. So let's put this in some perspective. People.
Speaker 1: I get it with the way they won the first
Speaker 1: two games, absolute stunners. We want them to go undefeated.
Speaker 1: But in the words of Dion, and an effort to
Speaker 1: not turn this into a football podcast or sports show,
Speaker 1: I'll leave you with Dion's quote, this is the worst
Speaker 1: we're gonna be. You gotta get me right now. If
Speaker 1: you are doing your to do this on Monday morning.
Speaker 1: I did mine on Sunday night, and I woke up
Speaker 1: ready to rock. If you woke up trying to get ready,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna blow pass you. So I highly
Speaker 1: recommend every Sunday night you get ready for Monday morning.
Speaker 1: I'm Will Lucas and this is black Tech, Green Money.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna introduce you to the biggest names, the brightest minds,
Speaker 1: and brilliant ideas. If you're black in building or simple
Speaker 1: using text to secure your bag, this podcast is for you.
Speaker 1: I'm onna solo episode, and I gotta think people who
Speaker 1: have slid in my dms, who have commented, who have
Speaker 1: shared on last week's episode where I did a solo episode.
Speaker 1: In what I've been gathering is you guys do enjoy
Speaker 1: these so if you do enjoy these, you know, make
Speaker 1: sure you're giving me that response because that lets me
Speaker 1: know that these are valuable and that they are worth
Speaker 1: continuing to do. So shout out to Boogie Marsh for
Speaker 1: this particular episode because you're commented, and I'm paraphrasing, I
Speaker 1: need a format where they talk to entrepreneurs about the
Speaker 1: tools they are using, where you just talk about the
Speaker 1: tools that can be used to automate those your business
Speaker 1: for solopreneurs. And so today's episode is inspired by that
Speaker 1: comment because I was thinking about your comment in reference
Speaker 1: to the businesses that I've built myself, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: specifically talk about Creatio again. I do have a couple
Speaker 1: of companies, but regards to what you asked for, Creatio
Speaker 1: is it makes the most tense to talk about that
Speaker 1: particular business. So Creatio is a full service marketing technology
Speaker 1: production agency. We do everything again from video production, website development, communication,
Speaker 1: strategy designed. I've been running this business. I started it
Speaker 1: and been running it since two thousand and seven, so
Speaker 1: it's got his first gray hair potentially. So some of
Speaker 1: the things that I've done speak to this one thing.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until about like five or six years ago,
Speaker 1: where it wasn't just me anymore running the business. Up
Speaker 1: until about five or six years ago, I was doing everything.
Speaker 1: And that's not a great place to be, even if
Speaker 1: you are a solo preneur right now. In my mind,
Speaker 1: business is supposed to grow. And so if you're in
Speaker 1: business and you want to be a solo preneur forever,
Speaker 1: I mean, I consider that like a you know, freelancer,
Speaker 1: I mean, but that's not like a business in my mind,
Speaker 1: you know, And so you can have your own opinions
Speaker 1: on this. To me, a business should have systems, it
Speaker 1: should have operations, it should grow, and it should ultimately
Speaker 1: provide opportunities for other people. And so that's what this
Speaker 1: episode is going to be about, the mistakes I made
Speaker 1: in the tools that I'm using today to help me
Speaker 1: run this business. And I'll start by saying this. It
Speaker 1: is so important to first of all, get an idea
Speaker 1: of what your business will look like at its best.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is you should actually
Speaker 1: have in my mind, it's a mood board or a
Speaker 1: vision board of pictures. And this is the way my
Speaker 1: brain works. So I need pictures in front of me
Speaker 1: that show me at its best at my gravest, this
Speaker 1: is what my life looks like. And for me, this
Speaker 1: has worked. There are so many things I put on
Speaker 1: my vision board years ago that have come to reality
Speaker 1: in my life. And so I admonish you if you
Speaker 1: are a running a business today, whether you're starting small
Speaker 1: or whether you're growing, you should always have a picture
Speaker 1: in front of you of what your life will look
Speaker 1: like at its best, and it should always get better,
Speaker 1: you know, over time. And so what I advise you
Speaker 1: to do, if you are a solopreneur, you're a small
Speaker 1: business owner, is to start to collect imagery. If this
Speaker 1: is the way your brainworks, start to collect imagery of
Speaker 1: your ideal state in business. You can do this for
Speaker 1: other parts of your life too, but I'm talking about
Speaker 1: business today. So I advise you to go to Canva
Speaker 1: and start to compile. You can probably even just search
Speaker 1: mood board or vision board on Canva and it probably
Speaker 1: already has templates there, which I highly advise you to
Speaker 1: use templates in this regard. You shouldn't be spending a
Speaker 1: ton of time on this. The goal is to just
Speaker 1: get it done and get it out of your head.
Speaker 1: And so go to Canva, sign up for an account,
Speaker 1: sign up for a free version, and just get start
Speaker 1: to collect images, whether you find them on Google Images
Speaker 1: or whether you find them in stock images that Canva provides,
Speaker 1: start to collect them in one document, one poster of
Speaker 1: what your business looks like at its best. I thoroughly
Speaker 1: believe if you keep the vision in front of you,
Speaker 1: you will find yourself being more attracted to things and
Speaker 1: things are attracted to you that provide opportunities to excel
Speaker 1: towards that particular state. So I am an evangelist of this.
Speaker 1: I believe you should keep that vision in front of
Speaker 1: you every day. Is my vision board is analog, so
Speaker 1: I print it off my board and it's analog. It
Speaker 1: sits on my dresser. So every morning while I'm getting
Speaker 1: ready for the day, while I'm putting on my shade butter,
Speaker 1: you know, I can see my vision board, and so
Speaker 1: it reminds me, and it keeps my brain focused, and
Speaker 1: it keeps my spirit focused on the things that I'm
Speaker 1: working towards. And so that's where I would start. If
Speaker 1: I'm you and I'm a solopreneur, small business owner, at
Speaker 1: any stage, you can do this, but I'm particularly talking
Speaker 1: to this solopreneurs and small business owners. You got to
Speaker 1: get a picture in your mind of what your business
Speaker 1: at its greatest looks like. And you're projecting into the future,
Speaker 1: and don't limit yourself to what you think might be possible.
Speaker 1: That's one of the biggest mistakes we make as entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: is we start to pick away at our dream because
Speaker 1: we think, well, this is something that's actually accomplishable, Like
Speaker 1: why that makes no sense to me? And so I
Speaker 1: think you should. It's your dream, and it's a dream
Speaker 1: today you're gonna put the work in hope. And so
Speaker 1: what you should be doing is think about the things
Speaker 1: that you desire and take the limits off of what's
Speaker 1: possible in that regard. Just put it down. This particular
Speaker 1: practice is for you, and you should not be the
Speaker 1: one clipping your own wings. You should not be the
Speaker 1: person who's telling you what you can't accomplish. So put
Speaker 1: down the greatest version of your business on this vision board.
Speaker 1: So start there. Get you a Canva account, a free version.
Speaker 1: You don't have to pay for anything yet most of
Speaker 1: the things I'm going to give you today have free versions,
Speaker 1: so I'm not here to try to cost you any
Speaker 1: more money. A lot of the things that I did.
Speaker 1: I found hacks you know, that I could use to
Speaker 1: build my business that did not cost me a lot
Speaker 1: of money upfront. As you start to grow, then things
Speaker 1: will start to you know, need to go to premium levels.
Speaker 1: But at this stage, you don't need to pay a
Speaker 1: lot of money to be able to create some systems
Speaker 1: in your life. And so number one, we're going to
Speaker 1: get that Canva account and get our vision board mapped
Speaker 1: out into a vision board or mood board type of format.
Speaker 1: The second thing I would do is get out of
Speaker 1: your head, you know, get all these operational things that
Speaker 1: you go through day to day. The way you operate
Speaker 1: your business should be documented, and so it's so important.
Speaker 1: The second piece of software I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: today is Google Docs or Microsoft Word. And because so
Speaker 1: many business owners, solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, especially in the early days,
Speaker 1: we build our businesses to survive and we don't build
Speaker 1: them to grow because we're just in the grind, We're
Speaker 1: in the hustle, we're in the thing. But if I
Speaker 1: could go back and do it over again, knowing what
Speaker 1: I know now, I would go back and I would
Speaker 1: document those steps because what happens is is as if
Speaker 1: you're positioning yourself to grow, not necessarily if you're positioning
Speaker 1: yourself to sell, because that's a different conversation, but just
Speaker 1: positioning yourself to grow the most one of the most
Speaker 1: important things to do is to get the systems, get
Speaker 1: the operations out of your head. If you keep it
Speaker 1: in your head, then you're just grinding and you're just hustling.
Speaker 1: But our objective here is to build a business that
Speaker 1: we can provide for at least us ourselves, secondarily our families,
Speaker 1: and hopefully other people. We can provide opportunities income, you know,
Speaker 1: in lifelihoods for other people. But you got to get
Speaker 1: the business out of your head and into a document.
Speaker 1: And I'm not just talking about a business plan. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about how you actually do what you do. So
Speaker 1: if you are, you know, running a business, I'm going
Speaker 1: to just talk about a media company because that's what
Speaker 1: I run. And so if I'm running a marketing company,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about, Okay, what are the steps
Speaker 1: in order to sell a potential customer a potential client?
Speaker 1: You know, you should be picking up the phone, writing
Speaker 1: this many emails. These are specific email templates that we've
Speaker 1: found to work. Here are another set of templates that
Speaker 1: we found that don't work, and here's what we figured
Speaker 1: out and why they don't work. And this should actually
Speaker 1: be written down in a document, in a Google doc,
Speaker 1: which you can get for free. You can pay for
Speaker 1: micro software, but you can get Google Docs for free.
Speaker 1: And so you should just start to write out how
Speaker 1: you do your business. If when you take a camera
Speaker 1: out of your shop, out of your studio and you
Speaker 1: take it to a shoot, is there a signing sheet?
Speaker 1: Is there a sign out sheet for where the equipment is,
Speaker 1: because that's something you're going to need when you start
Speaker 1: to hire your first people. I want to know where
Speaker 1: all our stuff is. And so if your people are
Speaker 1: taking your equipment to if your people will ultimately because
Speaker 1: you don't have any people yet, but if your people
Speaker 1: will ultimately be taking your equipment out of your studio
Speaker 1: and to shoots and doing things with them, you should
Speaker 1: know where all your stuff is. So there should be
Speaker 1: a process, a procedure for keeping track of your equipment.
Speaker 1: This is something that is kind of tedious to do,
Speaker 1: and this is why most people don't do it, because
Speaker 1: it's actual work in documenting how you run your business.
Speaker 1: But it's so important because again the objective is to
Speaker 1: get your business to grow, and the only way to
Speaker 1: do that is to create a roadmap for other people
Speaker 1: to follow. And so if you get your ideas, get
Speaker 1: your systems, get your habits, get your operations out of
Speaker 1: your head and into a document that other people can follow,
Speaker 1: your much better position to be able to bring on
Speaker 1: other people. And that's the part b to this thing.
Speaker 1: What I found was when I was trying to bring
Speaker 1: on people, I in the early days brought on the
Speaker 1: wrong people and it costs me money because I didn't
Speaker 1: know what I needed. And unless you have what you
Speaker 1: need written down, you really don't know what you need
Speaker 1: because you can't identify a particular job description or you
Speaker 1: know tasks that you need this person to handle, because
Speaker 1: you today are just doing everything. And so the only
Speaker 1: way to know and how to define what you need
Speaker 1: in a particular candidate is to have it written down
Speaker 1: til you get the point. Write down your stuff, get
Speaker 1: it out of your head, get your business out of
Speaker 1: your head and into a document. You cannot run a business,
Speaker 1: You cannot operate a business in your head. I say this,
Speaker 1: you know to people who come to meet and ask
Speaker 1: for mentorship all the time. You can run a business
Speaker 1: without operations, but you cannot grow a business without operations.
Speaker 1: So your objective today is to build start building a library,
Speaker 1: a repository of all the knowledge that it takes to
Speaker 1: run and operate this business. The next point I would
Speaker 1: love to make here, and it's just something the track
Speaker 1: that I've fallen into several times, and so many people
Speaker 1: I know have fallen into this. Many still are in this,
Speaker 1: particularly the chat. But it's not about which apps you're using,
Speaker 1: it's about how you're using your apps. And so I
Speaker 1: was the guy you know a few years ago. I
Speaker 1: would be on product hunt every day because I wanted
Speaker 1: to find what's the coolest new thing out there that
Speaker 1: could help me turbocharge my business and it would help
Speaker 1: me grow from X to Y. I would always be
Speaker 1: looking for cool new apps, cool new software, or just
Speaker 1: software that worked. It didn't have to be necessarily cool,
Speaker 1: but what was things out there that I could use
Speaker 1: to help me grow? And what I learned was it
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily about what I was using, It was about
Speaker 1: how I was using it. And here's what I mean
Speaker 1: by that. You're only good, you're only as good. Software
Speaker 1: is only as good as your commitment and discipline in
Speaker 1: using it. You can have the best software in the world,
Speaker 1: but if you're not disciplined in using it, what good
Speaker 1: would it do you? It won't do you very much good.
Speaker 1: And so you could run an entire business just on
Speaker 1: the Notes app if you're committed to using the Notes app.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're committed to using Google Sheets or
Speaker 1: Excel or whatever. If you committed to those systems and
Speaker 1: you're disciplined about using those systems, you can run a
Speaker 1: thriving business. The difference between using these types of apps
Speaker 1: and things that are actually designed like project management software
Speaker 1: in et cetera, is those project management softwarees are make
Speaker 1: it more efficient, and they build suites necessarily tailored to
Speaker 1: small businesses and large businesses also. But the premise here
Speaker 1: is to get you to build a discipline. That's what
Speaker 1: we typically don't have when we're running a business solo
Speaker 1: or when we're running a business that's small, is the
Speaker 1: discipline about our operations, because what we'll do is we'll say, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, let's just do this this time, or well,
Speaker 1: you know, I know we did like that last time,
Speaker 1: but this other way may be cool in this time
Speaker 1: and some that's okay, you know, but it doesn't lend
Speaker 1: itself to growth. If you are going to grow, you've
Speaker 1: got to standardize and you've got to find You got
Speaker 1: to standardize on the best way to do this. That's
Speaker 1: how you get to grow. You standardize on the best
Speaker 1: way to handle X and y task. Otherwise you're not
Speaker 1: creating things that can be replicated, that can be duplicated
Speaker 1: because you're doing it different every single time. So how
Speaker 1: can you expect somebody to come on to your team
Speaker 1: and be able to find success if they don't know
Speaker 1: how to measure success, if they don't are if they're
Speaker 1: not ingratiated into a system that is designed to make
Speaker 1: sure they are successful. So sometimes we bring people in
Speaker 1: and say, you know what, this isn't working out because
Speaker 1: we haven't created the system that they can find success in.
Speaker 1: And so it's so important to use your systems in
Speaker 1: a disciplined way. So once you create that library, that
Speaker 1: repository of this is how we do things, it's okay
Speaker 1: to update it. It's not I'm not saying it's a
Speaker 1: static document and it's never going to change. But use
Speaker 1: the apps in a way, use the software in a
Speaker 1: way that you get committed to it that this is
Speaker 1: an exercise. And a principle that is so important to
Speaker 1: say here is slowing down is actually how you speed up.
Speaker 1: Because Okay, now I got to if I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: do it this way this time, here's why I'm doing
Speaker 1: it this way this time, And I need to document
Speaker 1: that reasoning and that causes you to have to slow down.
Speaker 1: But if you document it why you did it this
Speaker 1: way this time, other people are now able to follow
Speaker 1: that guideline, that working manual. So you got to be
Speaker 1: the coach here. You have to create the playbook for
Speaker 1: other people to follow, even if today you're just creating
Speaker 1: the playbook for yourself. The playbook you will follow. Another
Speaker 1: piece of software that I highly recommend solopreneurs small business
Speaker 1: owners use honestly is Google Sheets. And the reason I
Speaker 1: bring up Google Sheets is for two because one, so
Speaker 1: many of us do not know our numbers. We know
Speaker 1: when we get a check in the mail, and we
Speaker 1: know when we have a bill to pay, but we
Speaker 1: don't know how our business is actually doing. And the
Speaker 1: only way to do that until you get to a
Speaker 1: place where you want to pay for quick books or etc.
Speaker 1: And we'll come back to quick books until you get
Speaker 1: to that place. I should be able to track my trends,
Speaker 1: you know. So I should have a document in Google
Speaker 1: Sheets or Excel, whichever you want to use, that shows
Speaker 1: me how did I do this January versus last January?
Speaker 1: What were my expenses this February versus my expenses last February,
Speaker 1: and what is the reason for the growth or decline
Speaker 1: in that number? And so I should be able to
Speaker 1: track those trends. There are ways you can do that
Speaker 1: with other pieces of software, but we're going to start
Speaker 1: with getting the basics here. And these basics are basics
Speaker 1: a lot of companies, big companies still use today, even
Speaker 1: at scale. A lot of big companies will still use Excel.
Speaker 1: I mean, people who in the corpus weite can are
Speaker 1: not in their heads right now, a lot of big
Speaker 1: companies still use Excel to run their businesses, to track
Speaker 1: their trends, to track how their company is doing. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes we try to get too fancy too, and it's
Speaker 1: not even about like being fancy. It's not even about
Speaker 1: you know, trying to grow a business. It's about becoming
Speaker 1: the kind of person who can grow a business. That's
Speaker 1: how you grow a business. The kind of person who
Speaker 1: can grow a business is a person who is disciplined.
Speaker 1: And so if you can get disciplined at Excel or
Speaker 1: Google sheets, you can grow a business. The next thing
Speaker 1: I would really admonish you to do, especially if you're
Speaker 1: a solopreneur, but even at the level of having a
Speaker 1: few employees, is create an ORG chart. Even if it's
Speaker 1: just you, your ORG chart should be clearly defined and
Speaker 1: in the beginning, because it's just you, your name is
Speaker 1: going to be owned all the roles. But the important
Speaker 1: thing here is to define all the roles required to
Speaker 1: running a business. To running your business, what are everything
Speaker 1: from the CEO all the way down to the housekeeper.
Speaker 1: If you got an office, you're the housekeeper. You know,
Speaker 1: you're the person taking out the chash and cleaning the bathroom.
Speaker 1: But what you're going to do is you're going to
Speaker 1: create an actual ORG chart and you can google. Hey,
Speaker 1: what does an ORG chart look like for you know,
Speaker 1: a media company, What does an ORG chart look like
Speaker 1: for a fashion brand? What does an ORG chart look
Speaker 1: like for you know, a grocery store. And you're going
Speaker 1: to create that org chart or tech company, even if
Speaker 1: you're you know, building some software. What does an ORG
Speaker 1: chart look like? And then you're going to just find
Speaker 1: one that best suits you, find one that makes the
Speaker 1: most sense to you, and duplicate it. You can do
Speaker 1: this in Google sheets, also also free. So you're going
Speaker 1: to create your role, the CEO role, all the vice presidents,
Speaker 1: all the analysts, all the directors, all the support staff,
Speaker 1: all of those roles should be spelled out, clearly defined
Speaker 1: with job descriptions. And then, like in any ORG chart,
Speaker 1: you're going to have the name of the person who's
Speaker 1: fulfilling that role today and today you are. So you're
Speaker 1: going to put your name. And I don't want you
Speaker 1: to just do this in your head. I want you
Speaker 1: to actually do this in a document. Again, guys, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be documenting, which is something small businesses don't do
Speaker 1: enough of. We're gonna be the outliers and actually grow
Speaker 1: businesses with policies and organizational operations documented in a reference library.
Speaker 1: So I want you to get a Google doc, Google sheet,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna create an org charge. You're gonna again
Speaker 1: not to repeat myself, but to repeat myself, You're gonna
Speaker 1: put your name in each of the roles supported with
Speaker 1: an actual job description, what is that role responsible for?
Speaker 1: Because what you're gonna find is as you bring people on,
Speaker 1: you're gonna know what you actually need them to be doing.
Speaker 1: That's what's important here because again, like I said this earlier,
Speaker 1: like sometimes we start the hiring people and we actually
Speaker 1: don't even know what we want them to do because
Speaker 1: we've been doing everything, so we think we can hire
Speaker 1: somebody who can do everything too, And people will let
Speaker 1: you down if that's the expectation you have. But if
Speaker 1: I can swap your name out new hire for my
Speaker 1: name in a row, that is helpful because I'm no
Speaker 1: longer having to do that job, and you're not confused
Speaker 1: about how I'm going to be judging your output. The
Speaker 1: next one up, I would just say, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of pieces of project management software that I
Speaker 1: highly recommend. I definitely recommend project management software if you
Speaker 1: have any employees, but also you should have project management
Speaker 1: software how you organize the things that you're working on
Speaker 1: in particular projects, even if you're solo. So if you
Speaker 1: are working on if I say you've got a fashion
Speaker 1: line and you've got a new line coming out. You
Speaker 1: should have a project management board that displays all the
Speaker 1: things you need to do in order to get that
Speaker 1: release out and release out. Well, if you are running
Speaker 1: a media company like I AM, or you know a
Speaker 1: private club like Also, you should like Also i AM,
Speaker 1: you should have a project management toolkit that displays things
Speaker 1: that are going on and what it takes to get
Speaker 1: them to completion. Two of those I recommend, and they
Speaker 1: both have free tiers so you can get started. Is
Speaker 1: a SIGNA At Creatio we use a sign At toll House,
Speaker 1: we also use the sign and I'm a big proponent
Speaker 1: of a SIGNA. We've graduated out of a couple other
Speaker 1: pieces of project software. It used to use base Camp,
Speaker 1: and what we found was as we were using it
Speaker 1: and as we grew, there were tools that we needed
Speaker 1: that base Camp no longer supported supported us to be
Speaker 1: able to use, and so we grew out of it,
Speaker 1: and so I highly recommend you finding a piece of
Speaker 1: software that works for you. Trello is another one. I
Speaker 1: love Trello. We also outgrew Trello. We could have not
Speaker 1: outgrown it, but then you just have to start paying
Speaker 1: for a bunch of features and a bunch of add
Speaker 1: ons that a signa just came with out of the box,
Speaker 1: and so Trello t R E L l O looked
Speaker 1: that up and it is a really good thing to
Speaker 1: be using if you get started and running your business,
Speaker 1: just to be able to try, hey, this needs to
Speaker 1: be done. This is what's in progress, this is what
Speaker 1: is done, here's who's responsible for X, Y or z
Speaker 1: et cetera. And it can also send you alerts. And
Speaker 1: so it's important that you get some piece of project
Speaker 1: software management software that helps you manage your day to
Speaker 1: day tasks, and then every Sunday night I highly suggest
Speaker 1: doing this Sunday night versus Monday morning. Is you just
Speaker 1: want to take a look at the entire project management
Speaker 1: software and just make sure that you're keeping up with
Speaker 1: your to do list. If you are doing your to
Speaker 1: do list on Monday morning, I did mine on Sunday night,
Speaker 1: and I woke up ready to rock. You woke up
Speaker 1: trying to get ready, I'm gonna blow past you. So
Speaker 1: I highly recommend every Sunday night you get ready for
Speaker 1: Monday morning. Upwork is another piece of software I use
Speaker 1: because I recognize some time ago that I didn't have
Speaker 1: to bring necessarily people on full time or even part time.
Speaker 1: Some people, I need you for this and you can
Speaker 1: keep it moving, and so contract out things that you
Speaker 1: should not be spending time on. There's some things people
Speaker 1: can do that is worth more to them to do
Speaker 1: in a shorter amount of time because they're better at it.
Speaker 1: They actually might be better than you at it, and
Speaker 1: they can do it in a shorter amount of time,
Speaker 1: and that time is cheaper to spend on them than
Speaker 1: it is for you to do yourself. That ex. Pick
Speaker 1: a dollar amount. I would much rather pay you one
Speaker 1: hundred bucks to do this than me spend four hours
Speaker 1: doing it. In that hundred bucks, I could have made
Speaker 1: that hundred bucks somewhere else. And so to do that,
Speaker 1: you got to know what your time is worth. If
Speaker 1: it costs more to hire somebody else to do something
Speaker 1: than it does in value to you, you should do it.
Speaker 1: If it's cheaper to hire somebody else to do something,
Speaker 1: then the value it means to you, you should contract
Speaker 1: it out. I use upwork to find high quality people
Speaker 1: because I can see their portfolio and it's just one
Speaker 1: that I use. There's others like fiver and etc. But
Speaker 1: I prefer Upwork. You can see their work. You can
Speaker 1: see the ratings and reviews from other people who have
Speaker 1: used them before, and so I use upwork to contract
Speaker 1: work out. Automation is another one. I still get emails
Speaker 1: with attached invoices from people that I work with because
Speaker 1: I love to work with small black owned businesses as
Speaker 1: much as I can, and every once in a while,
Speaker 1: I still get emails from these businesses with a PDF
Speaker 1: invoice attached, and I'm like, guys, we gotta get it together.
Speaker 1: I should not be receiving invoices via PDF in an email.
Speaker 1: I want to cook a button, pay for it. Get
Speaker 1: quick Books bro Like, this is not hard stuff to do,
Speaker 1: and so if you are using Apple Pages to create invoices,
Speaker 1: you gotta stop, get a quick Books online account and
Speaker 1: start to track and send out invoices via email at
Speaker 1: the push of a button. What's gonna happen is I'm
Speaker 1: going to get that invoice via email. I can if
Speaker 1: you set it up this way, I can pay it
Speaker 1: online right now. And you definitely want to allow your
Speaker 1: customers to have more than one way to pay. If
Speaker 1: you restrict me to one way to pay, you're very
Speaker 1: much less likely to get my business and so give
Speaker 1: me multiple ways to pay. I want to pay either online,
Speaker 1: I want to send a check, I want to zell,
Speaker 1: I want to you know, cash up or whatever. But
Speaker 1: allow me multiple ways to pay. And if you use
Speaker 1: something like quick books online, you get that opportunity to
Speaker 1: do that. You should not be manually creating invoices in
Speaker 1: a document and emailing them off to clients Google Docs.
Speaker 1: I also highly recommend you send links to documents versus
Speaker 1: attaching documents to your email. Here's why. So I create
Speaker 1: a document in Microsoft Word, I send it out to
Speaker 1: a client or a partner or whoever. Now they've got
Speaker 1: that document on their computer. But let's say i'll make
Speaker 1: it changed to the document. Now there's a version issue.
Speaker 1: You've got a version of the document. I've got a
Speaker 1: version of the document, and now we have to reconcile
Speaker 1: which is the most up to date. But if I
Speaker 1: send you a link to a document that's on Google
Speaker 1: Sheets or Google Docs or Google slides, you know, I
Speaker 1: can't tell you how many times I've sent proposals presentations
Speaker 1: to a client and then I recognized, oh shoot, there's
Speaker 1: a typo, or oh man, I need to change the
Speaker 1: price down or change the price up because X, Y
Speaker 1: or Z, and now they have this version on their computer.
Speaker 1: When I could just send a link to my presentation,
Speaker 1: my Google slides or my Google doc and if I
Speaker 1: recognized I made a mistake, I can just make the
Speaker 1: update and they'll never know. They don't see that there's
Speaker 1: now a version issue because they get the most up
Speaker 1: to date document because I may eat I changed the
Speaker 1: X to a Y, and they don't have an issue
Speaker 1: because they're going to see the most up to date
Speaker 1: verse of the document at all times. But if you're
Speaker 1: sending that out and you sent them a document, or
Speaker 1: you send them a PowerPoint presentation and it is not
Speaker 1: in the cloud, now you have risk of version control
Speaker 1: issue and you don't want to confuse your customer. Another
Speaker 1: piece of automation software I would highly recommend is we
Speaker 1: use Zapier at toll House. So toll House is a
Speaker 1: private social club that we've built and it's for the
Speaker 1: city dwelling, creative and entrepreneurial class. So toll House we
Speaker 1: have five bars, five lounges, a coffee house, a jazz
Speaker 1: club is inside toll House. There's a cigar lounge inside
Speaker 1: toll House, a coworking space, and all of these things
Speaker 1: are inside this social club that I own and our
Speaker 1: application process. People fill out a form and instead of
Speaker 1: me having to go distill all that or particular pieces
Speaker 1: of that information out into our different systems, we use Zapier,
Speaker 1: which allows applicants to their information to be sent to
Speaker 1: a couple of different places. For instance, you know that
Speaker 1: all the applicants, you know, before they're approved, they get
Speaker 1: put into a big database, a spreadsheet, you know, for
Speaker 1: lack of a better way to say it. So Zapier
Speaker 1: does that automatically for me. So I create a formula
Speaker 1: or a recipe in Zapier that says, hey, when this
Speaker 1: form when they click submit on this form, I need
Speaker 1: these pieces of information to go into this particular sheet
Speaker 1: or spreadsheet on my Google drive, and it happens automatically,
Speaker 1: so I don't have to go and then find that
Speaker 1: particular piece of information in a different place. All of it,
Speaker 1: and all every applicant who's ever applied the toll houses
Speaker 1: in one spreadsheet. And that allows me to be able to,
Speaker 1: you know, use that information to create maybe charts or
Speaker 1: demographical insights, and so I can use that and it
Speaker 1: happens automatically because all the customer, the potential applicant or
Speaker 1: I say, the potential member for toll House membership, all
Speaker 1: they did was fill out the form and the information
Speaker 1: got sent to where it needed to be sent in
Speaker 1: order for me to use it. The other place where
Speaker 1: we send information after they complete that's very same form,
Speaker 1: is into our constant Contact. So not only are they
Speaker 1: being submitted to our database of applicants, they're also being
Speaker 1: included on the general list for our newsletter. And so
Speaker 1: they're not a member yet, so I haven't switched which
Speaker 1: you know list they're on, but they get put into
Speaker 1: a pool of every person who's ever shown any interest
Speaker 1: into toe house on our constant Contact. That happens automatically.
Speaker 1: I don't have to touch it, so I don't have
Speaker 1: to go and you know, add people to my constant
Speaker 1: contact newsletter list. They submitted the form, they showed that
Speaker 1: they were interested in toll House membership, they got added
Speaker 1: to a list. That's it chat GPT. Obviously we're talking
Speaker 1: a ton about AI in our in our social discourse
Speaker 1: chat GPT. I use a couple of different ways. You
Speaker 1: can use it many different ways. Here's how I use it,
Speaker 1: and so before I even talk about how I use it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of fear when we bring up AI.
Speaker 1: It's particularly particularly generative AI, and we got to stop
Speaker 1: because we're probably already using AI and we just don't
Speaker 1: realize it. If you've ever taken advantage of autocomplete in
Speaker 1: the Google search bar, you are using artificial intelligence. It's
Speaker 1: trying to guess what you want to type. So if
Speaker 1: you've clicked that full word after you typed the first
Speaker 1: couple letters of the word, you're using AI. And so
Speaker 1: I use chat GPT to help us write social content.
Speaker 1: If i'm you know, I have an image that you
Speaker 1: know for our coffee house, which is inside to a house.
Speaker 1: If I have an image that shows, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: a woman working on the laptop and she is doing work.
Speaker 1: It looks like she looks like she's in work mode
Speaker 1: and she's sitting in the coffee house. And Earth, what
Speaker 1: we boast there is Earth is home to one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty plus plants. Earth is our coffee house, by
Speaker 1: the way to Earth has more than one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty plants inside the coffee house. And so I've got
Speaker 1: those characteristics. In this one photo, there's a woman, she's
Speaker 1: in work mode, working on a laptop in Earth and
Speaker 1: it's all these images, all these plant life around her.
Speaker 1: And I'll just put that in chat GPT and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to write an Instagram post and this is
Speaker 1: what the photo looks like. It's give me ten different
Speaker 1: versions of some corresponding text copy I can use with this,
Speaker 1: and it'll spit out ten different things related to the
Speaker 1: characteristics that I gave it. I have to do anything else.
Speaker 1: I just picked the one that works best for me
Speaker 1: out of the ten I told it to create for me.
Speaker 1: I may want to make a couple of adjustments here
Speaker 1: and there, but I can even give it the tone
Speaker 1: I want the post to be written in. I can say,
Speaker 1: write a funny caption for an image that has these descriptors,
Speaker 1: or write a serious one, or write a formal one
Speaker 1: or white one that somebody who's you know, from Scotland
Speaker 1: would write, and it will follow those rules. I also
Speaker 1: use chat GPT to write newsletter content. We send out
Speaker 1: a weekly newsletter just to let people know what's going
Speaker 1: on in the house, and so I have chat GPT
Speaker 1: assist me in writing that. If we talked about before
Speaker 1: writing your procedures developing procedures. Let's say you don't know
Speaker 1: how to write procedures for your company. You know this
Speaker 1: is what we do to do our business. Use chat GPT.
Speaker 1: You can say, hey, chat GPT when I need to
Speaker 1: place in order for more inventory, here's what I do.
Speaker 1: Write this in a format that somebody who's not familiar
Speaker 1: with our business can understand, and it'll spit out paragraphs
Speaker 1: or however long you tell it to write. If you
Speaker 1: say write this in a million words, it'll spit out
Speaker 1: your processes in a million words. If you say write
Speaker 1: it and distill it in a way a three year
Speaker 1: old can understand, it will spit that out, and so
Speaker 1: it all. I think the skill for the future that
Speaker 1: most people are going to need is how to write
Speaker 1: prompts for artificial intelligence. I think that is probably the
Speaker 1: most underrated skill as we talk about AI, that people
Speaker 1: should be focused on. If you're not going to be
Speaker 1: building AI, which many people won't be, you should be
Speaker 1: and you can still do this even if you're going
Speaker 1: to build it. But I think it's so important for
Speaker 1: us to be very proficient in how to write prompts.
Speaker 1: We talked about this last one before, and it's Canva
Speaker 1: I already talked about it at the top of this episode.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about it one more time because
Speaker 1: so many people believe that if they haven't created the
Speaker 1: content like one hundred percent all the way through, then
Speaker 1: I'm not going to post anything. And you may not
Speaker 1: even think that cognitively. What happens is you just don't
Speaker 1: post anything because you don't have that one dope piece
Speaker 1: of content to go in the news feed. And you
Speaker 1: got to stop. You just don't let perfection be the
Speaker 1: enemy of done. Because while you're stumbling over and stuttering
Speaker 1: on your posts and not posting because you don't have
Speaker 1: it all to gain it, they're over there posting and
Speaker 1: they post it twenty times while you're over here thinking,
Speaker 1: and guess who's going to get the customer, the person
Speaker 1: who's in their face. And so use Canva, use the
Speaker 1: templates that they've already created. They got beautiful templates on Canva,
Speaker 1: and change what you want to change, switch out the images,
Speaker 1: switch out the copy even but you don't have to
Speaker 1: start from zero, so you can start using Canva for free.
Speaker 1: It's free tiers to Canva. But the most important thing
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get you to recognize out of this
Speaker 1: is done is better than perfect when you're trying to
Speaker 1: build a business and spend the time in the places
Speaker 1: that actually matters. So it actually matters to build a
Speaker 1: quality product, It actually matters to build a quality service.
Speaker 1: The proof is always going to shine through. And so
Speaker 1: if you're not the best, the absolute best at creating
Speaker 1: graphics to correspond with telling people that you have quality products,
Speaker 1: use the designs of people who are good at creating
Speaker 1: those assets. That's my story for today. I hope you
Speaker 1: guys got something out of this. If you want more
Speaker 1: of this, just tell me, you know, hit me in
Speaker 1: my DMS. I'm going to post about this episode on
Speaker 1: my Instagram at will Lucas. If you go to go
Speaker 1: to my Instagram and follow, and if once I post,
Speaker 1: if you got something mod this episode, let me know
Speaker 1: you did. Some of you guys a little bit more private.
Speaker 1: You want to hit me in the DM, You're welcome
Speaker 1: to do that. Also, I'm not the biggest DM guy
Speaker 1: on Instagram because I get a lot of dms and
Speaker 1: everybody wants to sell me four x for some reason.
Speaker 1: And so if you got something out this episode, find
Speaker 1: your way to let me know, because I you know
Speaker 1: if you want more of this, I'll keep giving you
Speaker 1: more