0:02

I'm gonna look at black Tech three money.

0:04

We are headed to the end.

0:06

Of the year, and I got a special episode for

0:08

you.

0:08

In that regard.

0:10

So when I'm making content, I'm thinking

0:12

about what are the

0:15

question? So I don't make content in a vacuum. Let

0:17

me start there. I don't make content in a vacuum.

0:19

And what I mean by that is, I don't

0:21

just sit around thinking about what

0:24

should I talk about or you know, what

0:26

should I make a podcast about? Or what should I

0:28

make a video about or etc. I'm

0:30

typically in the mind of what

0:33

question am I being asked most

0:36

frequently? Or what is an

0:38

interesting question I've been asked recently,

0:41

or what are things that I'm currently engaged

0:43

with doing like what activities are

0:46

currently dominating my to

0:48

do list? And about this time

0:50

of year every year since I've been running

0:52

a business and growing

0:54

a business, I should say, not just running a business, but

0:56

as the businesses have been growing, I'm

0:59

thinking, you know, as I get through,

1:01

like midway through the fourth quarter,

1:04

I start to evaluate the

1:06

systems that I'm using, the technology

1:09

that I'm using to run my business. And

1:11

so what I want to talk about today is an

1:15

exercise that I'm going through and

1:17

that is you know, in December

1:19

November, I'm thinking about what

1:22

is the what are the things that I'm

1:24

using to run my business.

1:27

And could they.

1:28

Be either switched out to

1:30

something that is actually appropriate

1:32

for our work, because

1:35

I'm sure I like some points in the year, like

1:38

whatever you're using in whatever category,

1:41

you know, you may find something like, dang, I

1:43

wish this app did this, or

1:45

I wish it was more easy or more efficient

1:47

to do this in this app, or I wish I had something

1:49

that was less expensive, or I wish

1:51

I had something that was more robust,

1:54

or something that better fit and better suited

1:56

your needs. And so what I want to talk about

1:58

today is ten categories and concepts

2:01

for you to consider as you evaluate

2:04

your tech stack at the end of the year, because

2:06

the end of the year is

2:09

probably the best time for

2:11

you to make a switch. Start

2:13

so January one, you're all new. It

2:16

is very difficult for me, particularly

2:19

because at least one of my businesses have

2:21

a customer facing side and we hold a

2:23

lot of customer data. So for us

2:25

to make a switch on our pos

2:28

midyear is a feat

2:30

and it's not something that's pleasant to do at

2:32

any point, So why make it harder

2:34

on yourself by doing

2:37

it in the middle of the year.

2:38

So it's best.

2:39

To make a clean break December

2:41

thirty first to January first, so

2:44

that your staff can get time to prepare

2:46

with it. Your customers or members

2:49

or users or clients, they have

2:51

an opportunity to recognize

2:53

that there's a new day. And so some

2:56

of the things I'm going to talk about today are

2:58

things that I use particularly, But

3:00

I'm not going to give you like a bunch of app recommendations

3:03

because it's like super simple to just go to Google

3:05

and say what is the best software

3:07

for X. So what I want to give you are like

3:09

categories of things

3:12

in your texta that you should be thinking about

3:16

evaluating as you cross

3:18

from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four.

3:20

And this is something that will be applicable for

3:23

the foreseeable future. So every

3:25

year, you know this is an episode

3:27

that would be relevant to this

3:30

time of year. When you can make a clean

3:32

break from what you were doing to

3:34

what you could be doing, that is a better

3:37

situation for your growth.

3:40

Here's what's important about that is I

3:42

won't get number one. I won't get into a bunch of features

3:45

of why I a bunch of reasons

3:47

on why I graduated or transitioned,

3:51

as the reasons I graduated from

3:53

one app to the next might not still

3:56

be applicable today. Like sometimes some

3:58

of the apps that I used to use and switched

4:00

off of because they didn't have

4:03

X and Y feature, they might have those

4:05

features today. So that's why I'm not going to spend like a

4:07

lot of time like giving you actual app recommendations.

4:10

I may mention some, but I'm not going to give you.

4:12

This is not an app recommendation episode. This

4:14

is about the categories. And further,

4:17

some of the software I used

4:19

or used simply just didn't

4:21

meet the needs of my growing business,

4:24

or I could foresee that

4:26

they wouldn't meet the needs ultimately

4:29

going into the next period of growth,

4:31

whether that be the next year or next

4:33

whatever period however you want to determine that.

4:36

But I could see growth on the horizon.

4:38

So it's appropriate for me at this stage

4:41

at the end of the year, if I'm deciding to make a clean

4:43

break on January one,

4:45

it's appropriate for me to evaluate the forthcoming

4:48

needs so I can meet the demands

4:51

that my business is going to have before

4:53

they become problematic. So this

4:55

is again, this is an appropriate time for

4:58

you to be thinking about what app what

5:00

software, what technology am I using

5:02

currently that may

5:05

not be best suited for me going into

5:07

this next period. So the first one

5:09

I'm going to bring up is like your accounting

5:11

software I used to use,

5:14

And I don't want to like disparage.

5:16

I'm not disparaging any software. But

5:18

at the time I was using particular

5:20

software that I might mention that I'm not using

5:22

anymore. It just didn't meet the

5:25

needs I have at the time. And I started

5:27

it, I evaluated it and in methanies,

5:30

but as my business grew, it's no longer methany

5:32

So I will.

5:33

Start with talking about fresh Books. Fresh Books

5:35

was.

5:35

Something that it was an accounting software,

5:37

and it is accounting software that I used

5:40

to use for Creatio, particularly

5:42

my marketing technology production company.

5:44

And so we used to use fresh Books.

5:46

For invoicing, for sending estimates

5:49

and receiving money and et cetera. But as

5:51

we started to grow and needed more

5:54

like reporting and more balance

5:57

sheet, more p and L rope

5:59

bustness, we

6:02

realized that fresh Books wasn't necessarily

6:05

suited to do a lot of that work. Now

6:07

again, I want to emphasize this, which

6:09

is why I didn't really want to talk about particular apps.

6:13

Some of the stuff that I left

6:15

for jumping the ship from fresh

6:17

Books to quick Books. Fresh

6:19

Books could very well have that today at

6:22

the level that I could use it today, but

6:24

at the time when I transitioned,

6:26

it didn't. And again, so it's

6:29

like no shade on Freshbooks. So if you are

6:31

looking for an accounting software

6:33

accounting platform to use, I highly recommend

6:36

you at least take a look at fresh

6:38

Books and see if it meets your needs.

6:40

And so I graduated because there

6:43

were certain things I saw on the horizon

6:46

which would determine I

6:48

needed more reporting, more

6:51

again, more balance sheet information

6:54

and feature sets, more P and L

6:56

stuff, more contractor and

6:58

client you know, break down if I wanted to

7:00

filter down to who I paid, why

7:02

I paid them, which account I paid them, from

7:04

all these different things to the level

7:06

I needed one piece of software

7:09

didn't have it anymore, and it was time to make a

7:11

clean break.

7:12

And it was easiest to do that.

7:13

From December thirty first to January first,

7:17

the next one up, I would talk about project

7:19

management.

7:20

Software we used to use.

7:22

Again, no shade on them. In a beautiful

7:24

company, we used to use base Camp

7:27

from thirty seven Signals. I'm not even sure if they're still

7:29

called thirty seven Signals, but we used

7:31

to use base Camp to manage

7:33

our projects in

7:36

my company. And so now today we use

7:38

Asana. And the one

7:40

of the things that was problematic

7:44

when we were growing.

7:46

Is there.

7:47

And there's actually a principle at

7:49

thirty seven Signals. There's a book that they

7:51

wrote.

7:52

Sometimes let me find the name of the book,

7:55

because it was it

7:57

was rework. So they wrote this book called

7:59

Rework.

8:00

Back in twenty ten, and I'm going to paraphrase

8:03

one of the principles in and so one of the principles

8:05

was like they built what they built

8:08

and if it works for you, it works for you. Like they

8:10

didn't. They didn't lean into like a lot

8:12

of customer feedback and client feedback to

8:14

building what they were going

8:16

to put out in the world. They built

8:18

a lot of their software for them

8:20

to use and then they distributed it via

8:23

the internet. So software, so if it

8:25

worked for you, also that's it.

8:28

That was awesome, and so you could buy it, you could subscribe

8:31

to it. But they didn't like lean

8:33

on a lot of feedback and add a lot of features

8:35

based on the demand of people. Their

8:38

position was, if what we offer

8:40

works for you, it works for you amazing.

8:43

If it doesn't, we're not

8:45

for you. And there's an

8:48

admirable part of that that

8:50

I believe, and there's also parts that just

8:52

doesn't work for me. So we

8:54

decided to make the jump to Asama,

8:57

which had more features, and I had

8:59

just a little bit more experience because other businesses

9:01

that I'm into we used the Sauna, so

9:03

I had like a preview of the behind

9:06

the scenes, and I recognized

9:08

that this would also work for Creatio,

9:10

which is again my marketing technology production agency,

9:13

and so I highly recommend that

9:15

you if you don't have a project management

9:17

system, you definitely need to

9:19

get one, probably in almost any business

9:22

you're in. Like at toll

9:24

House, we use Trello because Asauna

9:27

is way too robust for

9:30

is way too complex, too many features

9:32

for what we need for a toe House,

9:34

which is a private member social club.

9:37

So Asauna works for my

9:39

marketing technology production agency,

9:42

is not a fit for my hospitality

9:45

and food and beverage operation.

9:48

So that's what we use over there, and that's

9:50

Trello because it just allows us to simply go

9:52

in and make edits to boards,

9:55

switch things from more on board to the next

9:57

depending on which status it's in status

10:00

it is in, and that's

10:02

what we do. So if

10:04

you don't have a project management system

10:07

at whatever stage you're at, even

10:10

if it's just an idea, it helps you

10:12

get some organization around your thoughts

10:14

and if you're actively managing your business, it

10:17

helps keep people accountable to where

10:19

they have responsibility and so

10:22

you can have insight because if you're asking

10:24

everybody or anybody every day

10:26

what they're working on, where they're at in

10:28

the process and etc. You shouldn't have

10:30

to do that. You should be able to just log into a dashboard

10:33

and see where so

10:35

and so is on this particular task,

10:38

where the project stands

10:40

in etc. So you should just be able to have a

10:42

dashboard so you can have a high level view of

10:45

where your business is, what are the ongoing

10:47

projects in, what state are they in. So

10:50

project management software we started

10:52

with Basekent. We're now using Asanna in one

10:54

of my businesses. In another business we use Trello.

10:58

It works for using

11:00

up is a sales software. So what

11:02

do you like pos like? You know, like,

11:04

what are you using to actually

11:06

make transactions and so some of these,

11:09

like with Creatio, we're making the transactions

11:12

by invoicing, so quick Books allows us

11:14

to do that. So not only are

11:16

we getting the accounting features, but we also

11:18

can you know, use the sales features

11:21

to where I can send you an estimate,

11:23

you can accept that estimate, it automatically

11:25

converse it over to an invoice, you can pay against

11:28

it right inside the same application. It's

11:30

automatically dumped into the reports and et cetera.

11:32

So I don't have to do anything on the

11:34

toll house side, which is again you know, hand

11:37

in hand combat it's a hospitality,

11:39

food beverage. We

11:41

use Square and so in side Square

11:44

we have our customer accounts. You

11:46

can build house accounts in there.

11:47

So you could.

11:48

We don't, but you could allow people

11:51

to aggregate their transactions

11:53

over a month and just automatically build

11:55

against their credit card which.

11:57

Is on file at the end of the month. We

12:00

don't do that.

12:00

So whenever you come in, you just provide

12:02

your member I D and we just ran the transaction

12:05

when you're done for the day. So

12:07

but Square is what we use so far.

12:10

Now, I had a lot of consternation with

12:12

some of.

12:12

The issue some of the features

12:15

or lack of features that Square had. But

12:18

one of the things that I have to consider are

12:21

the issues that I have with Square

12:24

such that it makes sense to

12:27

transition to another one, Because I

12:29

mentioned, we have a lot of customer accounts

12:31

on here and so there's a very

12:33

high barrier to making

12:36

that transition. Then it would be

12:38

if I just had a shop

12:40

that has one transaction

12:43

and I never really see you again, or

12:45

I don't hold any of your customer

12:47

data. But for me, I

12:50

invested a lot of money in terminals handheld,

12:52

you know, mobile sales devices, and

12:56

so I need to calculate and I have, you

12:58

know, a bunch of customer I have to

13:00

calculate, is making that change

13:04

a reasonable ROI? Am I going

13:06

to realize a reasonable ROI in

13:09

a certain amount of time that makes it

13:11

makes sense for me to change from one POS

13:14

to another POS. Again, it's

13:16

not just switching up the software, but now

13:18

I also have to buy new terminals

13:20

to be able to go swipe credit cards. So

13:22

those are things that you have to consider and

13:24

consider them diligently. Do your research

13:27

before you pick one, because once you pick one,

13:29

it is very difficult and costly

13:32

to get out of one, especially

13:34

if you are building relationships with

13:36

your customers and your clients, if you're just doing like

13:39

one time swipe and keep it moving, it's

13:41

a lot easier for you to make that change.

13:44

So one of the concepts I want you to consider

13:47

is, you know, you really want to build,

13:50

as you're thinking about your systems, a

13:52

single source of truth. So whether that

13:55

is what it is is a dashboard

13:58

effectively, so a dashboard that you

14:00

can log in at any time, whether

14:02

it be an app or whether it be you

14:05

know, something you built yourself, like an Excel

14:07

spreadsheet that has things automatically

14:09

dumping into it in the appropriate spots.

14:12

No matter what your industry, you

14:14

want something that's either prepackaged or something

14:17

that you built that allows

14:19

you to have a single source of truth.

14:21

And what I mean by that is

14:24

sometimes like when you're using different

14:26

pieces of software, you know,

14:28

you might have one customer reference

14:31

in two to three places across different

14:33

pieces of software, and sometimes things will

14:35

get out of sync and not everything has

14:37

an API to where they can all loop in talk

14:39

to each other. And so what you want to make

14:41

sure of is is my

14:44

sales reflected appropriately in this

14:46

app versus this app versus this app

14:48

and one way to determine that

14:50

is by having a single source

14:52

of truth to where I only look

14:55

at my sales information in

14:57

this application because I know if

14:59

I look at it over there, it might not account

15:01

for certain variables, and

15:04

I only use that particular app over there

15:06

for such and such thing like For

15:09

instance, we've been looking at seven

15:12

shifts, which is an app just for

15:14

scheduling our team, So

15:16

when we're scheduled making next week's

15:18

schedule for when people are going to work at toll house,

15:21

seven shifts is a remarkable scheduling

15:25

app. And they also do payroll.

15:27

They also do tip pooling. They also

15:29

do also do also do they do a bunch

15:31

of things. We didn't want to use them

15:34

for all those other things, but no matter

15:36

what, no matter that, we decided to

15:38

use them for those other things once we integrated.

15:40

It with Square.

15:42

It's pulling all this other information,

15:45

but it doesn't account for all the other

15:47

variables Square is accounting

15:50

for. So I have to be determined

15:52

and disciplined and only paying attention

15:55

in seven shifts to the scheduling

15:58

information because I know the

16:00

labor information and the sales information

16:03

that it's automatically pulling. No choice

16:05

of mind. But just because they're

16:07

integrated, the information that is

16:09

pulling from over there is not going to be

16:11

accurate.

16:12

It might be close, it.

16:13

Might be correct at some

16:15

point or another, but my single

16:17

source of truth regarding sales

16:20

is in Square and that's the only place

16:22

I'm gonna look for an accurate accounting

16:25

of our sales information. So

16:28

I said all that to say, what you want

16:31

is to build a dashboard or

16:33

find some software that you trust

16:36

that is hopefully uh industry

16:38

specific to whatever it is you're building. And

16:42

most industries have these. Whether you're in trucking,

16:44

or you're in marijuana, or you're in you know.

16:46

Food and beverage or whatever.

16:47

Most industries have dedicated

16:50

and software built

16:53

for that particular industry

16:55

and the nuances that relate to that industry.

16:58

So you want to find one that is most appropriate

17:01

to your industry as

17:03

you can, and then utilize

17:05

just that for the

17:08

truth about what's happening in your business.

17:11

The next one up, I

17:14

want to give you another concept, and that was you know, these

17:16

are why these are worthy investments because

17:18

sometimes, you know, even in the beginning of my businesses,

17:21

I was notorious and serious

17:25

about hacking together my own

17:28

stuff and at some point

17:31

you have to invest

17:34

in actual technologies

17:36

that help you do these things better and

17:39

help you see around the corners that you might

17:41

not even recognize. So, especially

17:43

when you're venturing into a new industry,

17:47

these apps and these softwares, these applications

17:50

might have you do things

17:52

inside them that you didn't even

17:54

consider were important to do

17:57

regarding that industry. And

17:59

so again, just to give you an example,

18:02

let's let's pull Creatio. So CREATI against

18:04

a full service marketing

18:06

technology production agency, and

18:08

so I didn't know how

18:11

to do forecasting. But if

18:13

you use a particular app based

18:15

on your sales, you know, and

18:18

if you're using it, especially over time, it

18:20

starts to learn, Hey, you know, in

18:23

the end of the third quarter beginning of the fourth

18:25

quarter, your sales spike, and you should expect

18:28

to be at these particular numbers, you

18:30

know, based on your growth over time,

18:33

and so then you can plan accordingly.

18:36

You might need to staff up, you might need to staff

18:38

down, you might need to invest in new equipment,

18:40

you might need to you know, start to talk

18:43

to different types of clients and customers.

18:45

And so those are insights that I

18:48

would not have been able without

18:50

the assistance of other technologies

18:52

to be able to put together on

18:54

my own. I may have known in my mind

18:58

that we grow, we spike

19:00

in business around certain times of the year,

19:02

but to actually have insights into

19:05

what is going on to in my business.

19:08

Is very, very helpful. So

19:11

these are worthy investments to make. And so.

19:14

My point there is there does come

19:16

a stage in your business to

19:18

where you cannot just continue to do

19:20

things alone. And here is

19:23

a great segue into this next one.

19:25

And so I do not allow

19:28

anybody on my staffs, any

19:30

of my staffs to create

19:33

individual documents and to email

19:35

them to people. For instance, you cannot

19:38

on my team create a word document

19:40

and email it to me. If you are creating

19:43

anything in the toe house team creative

19:45

team, even is better be on

19:48

a Google doc or Google Drive,

19:51

because I don't want multiple

19:53

versions of a document out there in

19:55

the wild. Because what happens

19:58

is is I'm going to create a word document.

20:00

You know, I have to pick on Microsoft, but I'm going to create a

20:02

word document and I'm going to email you

20:04

that document as an attachment, and

20:08

you might make changes to it. I might make

20:10

changes to it after I emailed it to you.

20:12

And now guess what, there's two versions of that document,

20:14

and potentially three versions of that document because

20:17

you might have made a change. I might have made

20:19

a change, and now we got to reconcile

20:21

the changes. And so I

20:24

don't allow people to do that in my team.

20:26

So if you're working with documents,

20:28

or if you're working with spreadsheets, or if you're working

20:30

with presentations, on my teams,

20:33

we use Google Drive. So I'm using

20:36

Google Pages to create these

20:38

things. I'm using Google

20:41

Sheets to make these things. I'm using

20:43

all of Google's Google's

20:46

offering of different applications

20:48

to create our stuff. So that way,

20:51

if you want to make a change, I can

20:53

see you making a change on this

20:55

one single document, and

20:58

I can see the whole history of changes

21:00

that have been made, and I can go backward in time.

21:03

If I want to change back to a previous version

21:05

of this thing, I can see the last time

21:07

you logged in to look at it. If

21:09

I'm just emailing you attachments, you

21:12

lose that ability to be able

21:14

to make sure that you have one document

21:16

that is accurate. And so whether

21:18

you decide to use Google Drive

21:21

or you decide to use Microsoft Office

21:23

and send links to documents and etc.

21:26

Instead of attachments to documents, these

21:28

are things that are much more suited to making

21:30

sure you stay streamlined. I will

21:32

say, though, and this is again, I

21:34

did not mean to say

21:36

anything negative about Microsoft. Is Microsoft's fantastic

21:39

company, and I will give them a little bit of kudos

21:42

in just this way.

21:42

I believe the Outlook app for.

21:44

iPhone is hands down

21:46

the best email client there is for business.

21:49

So if you are looking for if you're looking

21:51

for something better, even if you like the one you got,

21:53

the Outlook app for iPhone,

21:56

if you're in business, hands down the best

21:59

email client. The

22:01

next one is social

22:03

media management. And so I used

22:06

to number one, I'm sitting in front of.

22:07

My desktop all day long.

22:09

My laptop is, but I'm sitting in front

22:11

of a computer all day law. I'm not always

22:14

in my phone, it's always with me, but I'm

22:16

managing several businesses, so it's

22:19

often a lot easier to do

22:22

tasks via my laptop.

22:25

And so I used to publish,

22:28

you know, posts to our

22:31

many our various social media accounts

22:33

directly on the desktop clients, whether it

22:35

was Facebook or whether it was Twitter. Twitter used to have

22:38

a nice Mac compatible

22:40

desktop client. They don't anymore. X X

22:43

doesn't have one.

22:44

Anymore.

22:45

So now we use buffer

22:48

for particularly our

22:50

LinkedIn content and

22:53

that's LinkedIn. Yeah so cause Facebook launched

22:56

Facebook Business Suite, which

22:58

allows us to do

23:00

it right inside the Business Suite,

23:02

and so I don't have to go to an

23:04

external third party source to

23:07

schedule social

23:09

media content. Facebook offers

23:11

that they didn't used to. They

23:13

didn't always offer this. We used to do everything

23:16

via Buffer or Who's Sweet.

23:19

Now we just use Buffer. And the reason we use Buffer

23:21

versus who Sweet is Buffer was just less

23:23

expensive and for the types

23:25

of features that we needed Buffer suffice

23:27

who Sweet is a fantastic app also,

23:30

but it was just more expensive for the

23:32

team that we had. But

23:34

you should have something that

23:36

allows you to plan out

23:38

all of your social media content. You should

23:41

not, as a business owner, be

23:43

sitting on your phone, Hey, I gotta

23:45

get a post up before the end of the day, like

23:48

you should really legit, be spending a

23:50

Sunday night or a Sunday

23:52

afternoon or a Saturday night scheduling

23:54

out into the next week so that

23:57

it's just automatic, happening automatically,

23:59

Because unless you have something

24:01

that you just really want to post because it's something

24:03

cool that happens in the moment you really want to think

24:06

more strategically about your

24:08

social media content, and

24:10

the way to do that is to sit down and actually

24:12

plan it. And so planning

24:15

it in software that allows it

24:17

to be automatically posted without you

24:19

having to come back and post

24:22

it manually is

24:24

very very good and efficient use

24:26

of your time and dollars. And so again,

24:28

Buffer is one that allows you to do this. You

24:30

can set on Buffer not to sell I'm not trying

24:33

to sell it, but I love that I can

24:35

set the times of day that

24:37

our posts typically work on,

24:40

and it'll even give you insights on when posts.

24:43

It recommends that you schedule posts

24:45

for and you can schedule out

24:47

as far into the future as you like. And

24:50

so and you can have multiple social media

24:52

accounts in it, so I can see everything right

24:54

there on one dashboard, whether it be Facebook

24:56

and Instagram, Pinterest, even LinkedIn

24:59

all of these, I can see YouTube, I

25:01

can see them all on one dashboard, and I can see

25:03

the calendar of content that is set

25:05

to publish out in the future. One

25:08

more I would give you maybe two more.

25:10

I'll give you another. One that you really need

25:12

to think about as we cross over

25:15

into a new year is

25:17

purchasing and keeping track

25:19

of your purchasing. I used to up

25:21

until maybe even just a couple of months ago,

25:24

all of our purchases on Amazon

25:27

would be like on an individual Amazon

25:29

account. Now I was using a

25:32

business card, my credit

25:34

card, but I was

25:36

not using Amazon Business the

25:38

business suite, which allowed me to create

25:42

delegations, It allowed me to create

25:44

departments, it allowed me to create cost

25:46

centers. And so for this one, it

25:48

makes the most sense to talk about toll House. And so

25:51

when we were building Tollhouse, I

25:54

was using my Amazon account with.

25:55

The credit card, the appropriate credit cards, so that's

25:58

the.

25:58

Right thing to do. But I was

26:00

using a regular Amazon account to

26:02

buy things that toll House needed.

26:04

Whether those were cogs, those were calls

26:06

of this old whether they were like things

26:08

that we were reselling, or ingredients

26:11

or whatever that we needed to make the things. I

26:13

was using the regular Amazon account. But now with an

26:15

Amazon Business account and

26:19

all other accounts that you can imagine, it

26:21

allows me to actually do run

26:23

the reports that I need come tax

26:25

time and business evaluation time,

26:28

and so I can see if we bought

26:31

a particular thing from Amazon

26:33

for this particular department

26:36

or space or location inside a Toehouse.

26:38

Toll House has five bars, five lounges,

26:41

a coffee house, a cigar lounge, a

26:43

jazz club, a coworking space,

26:46

all inside of one footprints

26:48

twenty five thousand square feet, and so each

26:50

of those locations, each of those bars

26:52

are run like a different revenue

26:55

center. And so previously

26:57

I would not be able to buy some

27:01

equipment on Amazon and dedicate

27:03

it to a particular revenue center. Now

27:07

on Amazon, because I'm using

27:09

the Amazon Suite, I can

27:11

say, Okay, I'm buying this particular

27:13

thing using the same credit

27:15

card, and I can put multiple ones on there for my team

27:17

to even if they have to make purchases. I'm

27:20

using this and about I'm going to attribute this cost

27:23

to a particular place inside

27:25

tohouse. So at the end of the year or whenever

27:27

you want, I can go look and see

27:30

how much money I spent in this

27:32

particular department based

27:34

on the things that I'm buying. You

27:37

can't do that with just a regular

27:39

Amazon account, and so that's

27:41

just Amazon. So if you're buying

27:43

things from other outlets

27:45

and other retailers, look and see if they

27:47

have business accounts that you can set up.

27:50

Often they will want documentation like

27:52

you know, they want to see your corporate

27:55

structure, those documents from

27:57

the state that you're in. They may want to

27:59

see your EI in documents. They want to

28:01

see some sort of letterhead that says you are authorized

28:04

to make transactions on behalf of this

28:06

company. But the reason why

28:08

you want to do that is not only for the reporting,

28:11

but often they will have B to

28:13

B discounts because they want

28:15

to do business with businesses, and

28:17

so there's there are many websites

28:20

that will allow you to get ten percent off,

28:22

fifteen percent off just because you're a business.

28:24

And so that's something that you think about how

28:27

you're purchasing, not just be purchasing properly

28:29

using a company card, but also

28:32

what type of account you're using

28:34

on many of these websites, you don't want

28:37

to just use these as individual personal

28:39

accounts. See if they have professional

28:42

business accounts that you can set up once

28:44

you get your corporation documentation

28:47

in order. Last one I'll give you is help

28:50

desk software. So we currently

28:53

at toe house, if

28:55

you ever email the front of house,

28:58

it automatically goes into

29:00

our help desk software. I believe

29:03

today we use fresh Desk, So if you email

29:05

a specific email address that we created

29:08

for a toe house, a ticket is

29:10

automatically created. And the

29:12

reason for the reason why

29:14

this is important is because in

29:16

the earlier days, months ago, not

29:19

too long ago, because I remember the pain and

29:21

heartache of this, we would get all these

29:24

emails inbound from either members

29:26

or people who wanted to be members, or people who have

29:28

a members and we

29:30

were always chasing down. There were several

29:32

of us that managed the front of house email

29:34

address, and so we would get these emails

29:37

and we would believe that

29:40

somebody responded to it, but we

29:42

didn't know if somebody responded

29:44

to it, and so and we didn't

29:46

know how long it took, or we didn't know what they

29:48

said, and so you would all I would always

29:51

have the director that if anybody emails

29:53

somebody BCC me, I want to see all the

29:55

emails that goes out. And so that

29:58

is not like a full proof system. And

30:00

so a fool proof system is to

30:02

actually use software. And so sometimes

30:04

they would becc meet, sometimes they will forget

30:07

to sometimes it got lost in the shuffle,

30:09

whatever happened. But now using

30:11

the help desk software, we

30:14

can all see when somebody

30:17

emails this particular email

30:19

address that we created our front of house email

30:21

address. It's automatically

30:24

a ticket, so we know that the ticket is still

30:26

open and hasn't been responded to, or

30:28

if it's pending we're waiting for a response from

30:31

the member or the client, or if it's

30:33

been closed. Hey, this thing has been handled, and

30:35

I can go see the whole chain, the

30:38

whole thread of conversation that went

30:40

back and forth, which also allows me

30:42

to ensure that we're responding appropriately

30:45

in the tone, in the carefulness,

30:48

in the level of care and respect

30:50

that we have for our members. I

30:52

can see it. So if we're just

30:55

diving into emails with no salutation,

30:58

we don't do that at toll house. And if I see

31:00

that, I can chime in directly

31:03

to the person who respond to and say, hey, when

31:05

we respond to emails, this is how they should

31:07

look. You should give a greeting, give

31:10

a salutation, say their name, all

31:12

of these different things. So it allows me to create processes

31:15

and operations.

31:16

And I leave you with.

31:17

This particular thing. This whole

31:19

episode is about a

31:22

business principle that I thoroughly

31:25

believe in because I

31:27

found it to be true and every

31:29

the successful business owners founders

31:32

at whatever level they are at all

31:35

adhere to it, whether they cognitatively

31:38

do it or not. Is I

31:40

believe you can run

31:43

a business without processes

31:46

and operations, but you cannot

31:48

grow on without processes

31:51

in operations. So this entire episode

31:54

is for people who want to grow. If

31:56

you are happy in your corner

31:58

of the universe doing your thing

32:01

in the lifestyle company that you know,

32:03

it pays your particular home bills, you

32:06

might employ you and your kid.

32:09

But if you are.

32:09

Trying to grow, processes

32:13

and operations and all the ways

32:15

that you run your business cannot be

32:17

in your mind. They need to be written

32:19

down somewhere, particularly

32:22

like something that just shareable. And

32:24

so it is important that you get your business

32:27

out of your head into

32:29

a system. And so I

32:31

hope you get something out of this episode.

32:33

I spend a lot of time on this one because I

32:35

actually have to do a whole bunch of note taking

32:37

in bullet points because I live this every

32:40

day. And so I hope that you got something

32:42

out of it. If you did hit me in my DM on

32:44

Instagram, I'm at will Lucas. You

32:46

don't even have to actually even DM me. I might even

32:48

just make a post so you can just put it right in the comments

32:51

on the post, but I do hope you got something out of it.

32:53

If you know somebody who would

32:55

have benefit from this episode, also please

32:57

share this with them.

32:58

So black tech, green money. I'm well, Lucas