What Software To Use to Run Your Businesses Part 2 – Coffee with Danielle talking what software we use for our businesses | Ep. 174 | Business Podcast

Summary

This week is Part 2 where we talk about what software we use to run our businesses and some of the challenges and solutions we’ve found.  Every Friday Danielle Jenkins, founder of Domestic Divas, and I do a live show called Coffee with Danielle at 8am PST, 11am EST on YouTube and talk all things about running a business. 

Danielle and I each run businesses doing millions in revenue each year. We grab a coffee and pull back the curtain on our businesses. We talk about what’s working, what’s not, what software and systems we use, sales and marketing strategies, our own wellness and other challenges and solutions we’ve discovered.

Drop in live on Fridays on the EDGE’s YouTube channel, ask questions and join the conversation via chat or grab our recorded conversations on Fridays.

Hello Friends.

Danielle:

Welcome to the Edge. Today is a recording from Danielle Jenkins who is the founder of Domestic Divas and I coffee meeting on friday mornings at eight o’clock and you can tune in live at eight a.m. Pacific time, 11 a.m. Eastern time on our Youtube channel.

Danielle:

Just google Edge podcast live on Fridays and you can listen live and interact with us otherwise you can catch this recording like you are right now from our chat earlier this morning and this is part two where we are talking about what software we use to run our company and Daniel and I talk about software in this episode as well as some other business issues that will help you move your business forward. Here we go.

Danielle:

Welcome to the Edge podcast, your weekly playbook about the inner game of building a successful business making you a happier, healthier and richer business owner and here’s your host Brandon White Danielle, what’s happening morning?

Danielle:

Mm there it’s working saying this meeting is being livestreamed.

Brandon:

Got it.

Brandon:

Perfect.

Brandon:

Well it’s not quite there.

Brandon:

The bar’s almost complete.

Danielle:

It’s saying on my end meeting is now streaming live.

Danielle:

Well you’re live, you are alive, I am in my living room.

Brandon:

Well I met my little breakfast nook here where I usually have a coffee and eat and then I have my living room here.

Danielle:

Behind me.

Danielle:

You’re not traveling today.

Brandon:

No taking a weekend off to stay home.

Danielle:

I have a couple of get together tomorrow during the day with my girlfriends.

Brandon:

So we’re gonna go have lunch and then just get a, you know caught up on some stuff at home.

Brandon:

Well that’s good. It’s nice to be now and it’s thanksgiving in Canada this weekend.

Danielle:

Thanksgiving.

Brandon:

What’s the date? Is October 9?

Danielle:

So how does that work? Is that just do you actually call it thanksgiving? Why isn’t that home?

Danielle:

You do?

Danielle:

Yeah, thanksgiving. So on sunday we have dinner at my mom’s. So we won’t go over there. We do the whole day. We still will do breakfast then we’ll play games, we play board games, bocce ball, we love bocce ball in our family.

Brandon:

Um So we’ll play games all day and then we’ll have a big turkey dinner on sunday afternoon.

Brandon:

So can you tell me how that works? Because you know this may share some of my ignorance about the history of Canada. But did you steal that from the United States?

Danielle:

What?

Danielle:

Thanksgiving?

Brandon:

Yes.

Danielle:

I have no idea. I’m not even from Canada. How do I know I just know we came here and we were celebrating thanksgiving and I just know that Canada and us have different thanksgiving.

Brandon:

Yeah. It’s weird isn’t it? I was just wondering that I’m gonna have to look that up later. The can I mean Turkey seems who seems so american but um columbus didn’t discover Canada.

Danielle:

I mean maybe he discovered he discovered north America.

Danielle:

So maybe I don’t know does that show that we’re not very good at.

Danielle:

Yes.

Danielle:

Yeah I say this all the time.

Danielle:

We’re smart at some things but others that’s terrible.

Danielle:

Well do they have anything like this in England?

Brandon:

No, they don’t know.

Danielle:

Thanksgiving is not a thing in England, it’s not even England wasn’t founded, it seems like England just always existed.

Brandon:

Yes.

Danielle:

It was like everybody, it was like England and then everybody moved from England to across the world, I mean they ruled the world Empire.

Brandon:

Well, we’ll have to look that up today so that should be fun I guess.

Danielle:

Yeah. How’s the weather up there?

Danielle:

Um It’s kinda cloudy today.

Brandon:

Um it’s warm, we’re having a really warm fall. Um it’s like 22° out today, so it’s it’s nice, it’s just foggy, cloudy kind of gloomy.

Brandon:

So I like to be on days when uh when it’s kind of like this, it’s a nice bright to the day, you know?

Brandon:

Yeah, it’s 22°C. What’s that in Fahrenheit um I’ll find out.

Danielle:

Are you googling while we’re on this call?

Brandon:

Yeah, I want to know what I always forget the equation.

Brandon:

Oh, it’s 71, Jeez that’s warm, It is warm.

Danielle:

It’s very warm.

Danielle:

Yeah, I was wondering because I saw you in short sleeves and stuff and your pictures this week and I was like I thought that it it’s october fall should be coming towards, you know, I call it the east coast, but endure north.

Brandon:

Yes.

Brandon:

Yeah.

Danielle:

You know what Brandon and in Canada we either get cold winters and it’s already snowing or we get our, sorry warm falls and it’s or it’s already snowing like there’s no in between, wow.

Danielle:

Yeah, so we’re lucky here, it’s nice I guess no one’s complaining.

Brandon:

Mm have anyone that anyone’s hot for me if you believe that.

Danielle:

But um I’m sure it’s nice, it’s nice.

Danielle:

I don’t even need my heat on, it’s nice breeze coming through, it’s nice.

Brandon:

You got short sleeves on, I got a merino wool sugar supposed to be sunny today here though, it’s going to be like high of 57.

Brandon:

So what’s that like?

Danielle:

Hold on 15, I’m gonna have to get good at this.

Brandon:

Uh we’re gonna have to do all the conversions, 57 is 13 C, it wasn’t far off, wow, it’s old there.

Danielle:

Well it’s always like this so the weather here is basically, I mean I’m generalizing but it’s basically 48 to um 48 65 almost every day.

Danielle:

Well okay, I mean it does get colder but it doesn’t get freezing, I think we’ve had like one snowflake in 20 years here.

Danielle:

Okay, so it’s kind of like and weather very just Yeah, it’s um, we actually have nine micro climates in half moon Bay alone, wow.

Danielle:

The end of the street could be 50° in complete fog And in the back of our house could be 68 and Sunny and warm.

Brandon:

Oh my goodness, that’s so funny.

Danielle:

It’s crazy.

Danielle:

Yeah, that is crazy.

Danielle:

It makes it a real problem the bike um because you never know how to dress because literally you go one mile inland And it can be 75°. That’s insanity.

Danielle:

It really is.

Brandon:

It’s very, very different than the east coast of north America where most of your weather you can see coming or, or or especially where you know, I don’t know about your little bit north, but Detroit and Chicago and you know Washington D.

Danielle:

C.

Brandon:

New york, you can have thunderstorms just pop up in a minute.

Danielle:

That does not in general, although southern California had a huge lightning storm the other day.

Danielle:

Um that doesn’t happen here.

Danielle:

We can actually see the weather coming seven days in advance from the Pacific, wow.

Danielle:

So you actually know it’s coming now the fog and whatnot is all controlled by the Central Valley and things like that.

Danielle:

But the major weather systems we can generally see coming, whereas in the east coast, you know, in the afternoon it could be a huge thunderstorm and you know, you had no idea it was coming, wow, that’s crazy.

Danielle:

You know what though?

Danielle:

I I do uh it’s crazy that this happened because for example, I’m in Orangeville um for any of our potential Canadian listeners or travelers that nowhere Orangeville is so we’re just about an hour north of Toronto where my parents, they live about half an hour more north of here.

Danielle:

So remember my story about when we first came to Canada and my dad picked us up in that rusty old Trailblazer and we came up the mountain and then there was snow, it was freezing cold and it dropped about 10°. I wasn’t exaggerating like it can be 20 degrees here in Orangeville and 12 degrees in malm er where my parents live and not snowing here snowing there.

Brandon:

The amount of times growing up as a kid where just mull mur school busses were canceled because of the weather.

Danielle:

What it happened so often.

Danielle:

That’s great.

Danielle:

So you have you have some micro climates there?

Danielle:

Yeah, yeah, we do.

Danielle:

And even Toronto, right, so between Malmo and Toronto, sometimes there’s a 10 degree difference.

Brandon:

Um There’s no snow in Toronto, there’s three ft in orange or in my former um Yeah, very, very different within an hour and a half of each other.

Danielle:

That’s crazy.

Brandon:

You you also have that lake effect most likely.

Danielle:

I imagine that lake must affect your weather somehow even though you’re a few hours away.

Danielle:

Yeah, it does.

Danielle:

Like we will get excessive snow in some areas like the snow belt.

Danielle:

Right?

Brandon:

So yeah, geography and weather, an environment is not really my forte, I just know that it snows and I’m not a fan.

Brandon:

Yeah, I don’t want to be near snow at all ever again.

Danielle:

I’ll have to come down and learn how to bike times.

Danielle:

That’s why people I think are happier.

Danielle:

It’s a sunshine tax here in California because you can be outside so much.

Danielle:

Yeah, you can bike, you’re, I mean, I, I noticed a real difference when I moved here from the east coast, um very, very different because you, even in the winter here, you know, considered comparable to what it is in the, you know, on the east coast, it is Just mild.

Danielle:

So, you know, I mean we wear Patagonia jackets and stuff when it’s 50° or build a fire when it’s 50°. But um, yeah, it’s very mild.

Danielle:

But all my friends go to, a lot of my friends say all of them, lot of my friends go to Tahoe and Tahoe has in general snow along as ah, global warming isn’t happening that year, depending on how that works.

Danielle:

But um, but they love the snow and san Francisco peninsula will basically clear out to go to Tahoe and I want no part of that.

Danielle:

No, I’m, you know what, I’m not a snow person either.

Danielle:

Um, when I was a kid, of course, right, you want to go and play in the snow at the time, but I’m so lucky that I can do my job anywhere as you can see um, whether I’m at home or you know, traveling because if it’s super snowy outside, I don’t want to leave the house, I don’t want to go and warm up my car.

Brandon:

I don’t want to get snow off of it.

Brandon:

I don’t want to put boots on, you know, I hate it.

Brandon:

So I’m just so lucky that well in my office is only six minutes from here.

Brandon:

So I’m very lucky that I can be remote for that reason.

Brandon:

Yeah, you are and you have a you have your own some of your own vehicles or your people.

Brandon:

Right?

Brandon:

So um yeah, like everybody has to has to have a vehicle because we don’t have any clients in like walking distance and we have no, I mean do you do you supply the truck?

Danielle:

No, We don’t do that.

Brandon:

We do vehicle allowances.

Brandon:

And we were going to, the problem was um we asked a few of our managers actually, it’s funny, I hope she’s listening because she’ll kick me in the butt.

Danielle:

One of our managers that live about 45 minutes north of here.

Brandon:

Um they have a lot of people that live in their home.

Brandon:

So I said, listen, we’re gonna get everybody cute Jettas, we were gonna do Volkswagen Jettas and you know, do the wraps on them for the company and everything and she goes, I’m not gonna have parking for that car.

Danielle:

So I’d rather you just give me the allowance because I’m not going to have room to put my car and the company car.

Brandon:

So yeah, and and people are more comfortable in their own cars, so we just did the vehicle allowance, wow.

Danielle:

Well, yes, I mean that’s different.

Danielle:

A lot of employees don’t, or you know, team members don’t like to use their own car.

Danielle:

So so they load up their car with all the supplies and everything, vacuums, vacuums, mops, equipment, supplies, everything and then you just give them a I don’t know how the taxes, I know some of the taxes in Canada, but you do per mile.

Danielle:

Uh So we did do per kilometer again, like back to like even last week’s conversation about trial and error, learning things we used to do per kilometer, but basically they would all have to log their kilometers.

Danielle:

So when we were trying to do it through our accountant, we couldn’t do it.

Danielle:

So our system job or actually has GPS tracking um for kilometers for that reason I’m an accountant, they can’t use that, they have to individually log it, like transport trucks have to do Mhm.

Danielle:

And nobody wanted to do it.

Danielle:

So we now just pay everybody a flat amount at the end of each week um for their travel allowance.

Danielle:

Just one, they don’t have to pay taxes on it.

Danielle:

Yeah, so we just kind of work around that.

Danielle:

Everybody likes it.

Danielle:

So we talked about it last friday that you used jabber for basically all of your operations and then you have an account outside of that.

Danielle:

So jabber logs.

Danielle:

Well it’s an app is it must be an app then, so you just turn the app on and it was logging the miles.

Danielle:

Yeah, so um I think I explained to you, so our office staff, we all have the dashboard that we can go in on our computers, laptops online, then our staff all have it on an app so they can see everything on there when they clock in the Gps picks that up and then when they clock out it also picks it up so it’ll calculate the kilometers for us.

Brandon:

So did they freak out about that because of privacy and all this stuff?

Brandon:

No, because we don’t we don’t necessarily track the it’s not like we can go on and see, you know where they’ve been and what they’ve done on their lunch break or anything.

Brandon:

Right?

Brandon:

It’s just the points, the way points of where they checked in and where they checked out.

Danielle:

So we know the distance is um the formulations that we used to do that, so Yeah, Well, that would make sense.

Danielle:

I don’t know, I think there’s a lot of conversation around privacy these days.

Brandon:

I mean, well here in the United States, I don’t know if this is true, but I say, I don’t know whether it’s true because I don’t know whether I should believe the news stories anymore and you got to do like 30 minutes of fact checking to get anything right and I just haven’t had time.

Brandon:

However, we have a new infrastructure bill and I heard now this could just be some one of these far extreme groups trying to put this out there, that the government wanted to tax us on miles driven.

Danielle:

So they would put a GPS tracker, I don’t know how you’re going to scale that, but you put a GPS tracker on people’s cars and then it would keep track of how far you traveled and then it would tax you on that.

Danielle:

Now, here in the United States, there’s already a gas tax.

Brandon:

So there’s a federal gas tax and state gas, uh, gas tax.

Brandon:

And they’re generally pretty expensive if you do it on a per gallon basis.

Brandon:

Right.

Danielle:

But I was thinking, why would they, why would the government do that?

Danielle:

But then it hit me because if people move to electric cars, they will not be, they will, how are they going to get tax?

Danielle:

How are they gonna in that tax in the United States at least goes a lot to transportation.

Brandon:

So it does go to support the roads.

Danielle:

I’m not completely complaining.

Brandon:

I think it’s too high, but you know, we do need roads so you’re going to have to pay something.

Brandon:

So I was like, how?

Brandon:

So then I, so then the government or somebody in the government is thinking, well, the people who have electric cars already get tax credits.

Brandon:

So they’re actually negative if you look at it that way on that and then people like me have solar, which means that I charge my car off of solar.

Brandon:

I’m not even on the grid most days.

Brandon:

I’m not on the grid because I have the Tesla batteries in my house now do you?

Brandon:

I’m not sure how it works in the states with solar.

Brandon:

Do you get a credit as well for having solar electric?

Danielle:

We get some sort of credit.

Brandon:

I haven’t received that credit yet.

Brandon:

Um, to be honest, for all our business listeners, I have been able to write off.

Danielle:

So I have the Tesla solar, not the solar shingles, but I have Tesla installed installed our solar.

Brandon:

So we have the solar panels and then we have the two, we have two batteries.

Brandon:

So we have huge giant Tesla batteries.

Brandon:

And because here in northern California, we have fires all the time and the electric goes out for days.

Danielle:

So they’ll shut the electric off so that the, so it doesn’t spark a fire in the mountains and then everything turns on fire.

Danielle:

So because like you, we can work from home and my studio here in our backyard and everything, we need electric.

Danielle:

I mean all the companies we have rely on us to communicate on a daily basis.

Danielle:

So with that, um, it’s basically power back up and I was able to write the entire thing off.

Danielle:

Uh huh all my taxes, so I’m not sure whether we’re going to get tax credit because I haven’t been that worried about it.

Danielle:

But there are tax credits.

Danielle:

Um, in different states do different things and I think the Feds do different things now you also get a tax credit for electric car.

Danielle:

But there was limits on the manufacturers.

Danielle:

So if um I don’t I think the government’s trying to bring it back but If I think they said like the 1st 500,000 units of a new electric car company the customers would get credits and then everybody didn’t.

Danielle:

So I don’t know if I’m gonna get credit on my tests or not.

Danielle:

But again my Tesla was a write off because It’s £6,000. That’s why I bought the X.

Danielle:

And not the little one which I would have preferred.

Danielle:

Um so that is a business vehicle because truthfully I have a daily driver if you like a fun car for my personal stuff.

Danielle:

So um I was able to write that off too.

Danielle:

Yeah so similar things here.

Danielle:

Um So my suv is a company car.

Danielle:

So the government gives us uh $750 per month towards that.

Danielle:

So my car’s right off for taxes.

Danielle:

Um it’s funny you mentioned the £6,000 because I don’t believe the Canadian government has implemented that because I am a Mercedes driver.

Danielle:

So I love having those and you know the G wagon.

Danielle:

Okay so that is also £6,000 or more.

Danielle:

So I was actually Watching G wagon weighs more than £6,000. Something to that effect because people in the US are using it as a company car because they can get it under this tax its gross weight.

Danielle:

It’s uh probably tax people listening to me.

Danielle:

I have the note there’s a book called no a book I read it in my spare time.

Danielle:

I know that sort of geeky.

Danielle:

But if you own your own business you got to know these tax laws really well.

Danielle:

Um and uh it’s I think it’s £6000 gross weight.

Brandon:

Not that it necessarily ways that but um the Tesla qualified because of the batteries.

Brandon:

I didn’t know the G wagon was weighed that much.

Danielle:

So because I was looking into it but it’s not the same.

Danielle:

I mean I don’t know how cool I would look driving a G wagon but the G wagon qualifies in that under the U.

Danielle:

S.

Danielle:

Tax rule for that.

Danielle:

So a lot of people use the Mercedes G.

Danielle:

Wagon as a company vehicle in the States.

Danielle:

Well I didn’t realize that.

Danielle:

So the thing that’s going on in the States right now tax wise is that you can always write off your large expenses so that would be a big asset.

Danielle:

All right.

Danielle:

That’s not probably the technical term but it’s a it’s a large asset and you could depreciate it every year on a on the schedule that the government gives you.

Danielle:

I think in the U.

Danielle:

S.

Danielle:

Is generally five years.

Danielle:

However here in the United States and I don’t know I think it was passed four years ago there’s two more years left where they’re allowing accelerated depreciation.

Danielle:

So you can take your entire that entire vehicle as long as it qualifies as a full deduction.

Danielle:

Um and you so you don’t have to depreciate it on a yearly basis, which is a big deal.

Danielle:

And um what you call it, you can do that with large assets.

Danielle:

I think the limit is 1.2 million.

Danielle:

So you can basically buy your big assets that you need vehicles and things like that right now and take the full deduction on your business taxes which is you know, that’s an incredible amount of savings.

Danielle:

Oh yeah huge.

Danielle:

And I just actually pulled it up here.

Danielle:

So um it says if you’re looking for a big right off and it makes sense for your business needs consider purchasing an suv the weighs over £6000 like a Mercedes G wagon because under section 179 you can expense up to 25,000 if the vehicle is purchased and in service prior to december 31st.

Danielle:

Is this in Canada or the US?

Danielle:

Um That sounds like you, it is us.

Danielle:

I looked up us.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

Okay.

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

So yeah, I guess I didn’t realize I was going to need my accounting books on our on our we’ve been off into these funny things but they’re helpful so now you know you’re we’re going to see an influx of people driving g wagons and Tesla.

Brandon:

Well yeah I didn’t I don’t I didn’t know that.

Brandon:

He was like, I’m on a Mercedes person.

Brandon:

I’m not I have nothing against Mercedes.

Brandon:

I think Mercedes are great cars.

Danielle:

I just it’s not my I’ve driven BMWs and Porsches but and and Toyotas and Volkswagen’s really um but uh it’s funny that they mentioned the g wagon that seems like some good marketing for Mercedes.

Brandon:

Yeah, it is actually because the Mercedes website Mr Mercedes, Benz of Woodlands, wherever that is.

Danielle:

Um in the States, the state’s website, Woodlands, I’m not sure what this dress is, but it’s on here as the, I don’t know if you can see that.

Brandon:

It says exemption.

Brandon:

Is that phone lady?

Danielle:

Oh it’s it’s just the iphone whatever, huge when you put it on camera.

Danielle:

No, it’s it’s fine.

Danielle:

Look, my hands are tiny and it fits fine in my hands.

Danielle:

Um Yeah.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

So there you go.

Danielle:

So it is £6000.

Danielle:

It’s a full deduction you have this year and next year to do it.

Danielle:

I’m not an accountant.

Danielle:

Neither is Danielle.

Danielle:

Make sure that you consult your accountant or financial advisor for any advice that we’re giving, that’s the disclosure for the FTC because God knows they’ll say something but we’re only sharing our own experiences.

Danielle:

We’re not saying that they’re right right.

Brandon:

Exactly there.

Danielle:

Uh So that’s a big that’s a big thing on taxes.

Danielle:

Especially um if you can write that whole thing off.

Brandon:

So yeah, that went off because we were talking about cars and assets.

Danielle:

I’m not a big fan of that.

Brandon:

A lot of people lease their cars.

Danielle:

I’m not a big fan of the least thing.

Brandon:

But um, yeah, no, I, I agree.

Danielle:

Um, but should we go back to our extension of our previous Conversation, Part 2?

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

Of your software.

Danielle:

I want to hear all about your software.

Danielle:

So yeah, I was thinking about that this morning and for all our listeners last week, which you can go back to and grab.

Danielle:

We did part one and Danielle walked us through everything that she uses to run domestic divas and all her division.

Brandon:

So if you’re interested in that in a service business, Then you should jump back to part one, which was last Friday.

Brandon:

The, um, so I’m gonna give an overview.

Brandon:

It sort of convoluted, but I’m gonna start with the Edge, Since we’re, we’re talking about the Edge isn’t just a podcast, it’s a media company that has newsletter.

Brandon:

I was actually trying to write that this morning because JIA says that I’m behind, which I am.

Brandon:

Um, but writing 22,000 words a month is, you know, it’s a lot, but I, I enjoy it anyway.

Danielle:

The things that we use, so one for, and we build and we do build software.

Brandon:

So I want everybody to listeners to know that this is more of a media software business if you will online business than it is really.

Danielle:

Anything.

Brandon:

You know, we could probably do a whole episode on the podcast, which I can mention on what we are, what we use for that.

Brandon:

But in general what we’re using for communications is email, we use gmail, um commercial enterprise edition.

Danielle:

So we, ironically we also use Apple iCloud, but I’ll get into that in a minute.

Brandon:

Um we generally don’t use any Microsoft products except Excel, we don’t use Word and we don’t use power point.

Danielle:

And the only reason was was because you can’t use everything under the Sun.

Brandon:

And we found that the Microsoft 365 word and power point sharing was kind of clunky.

Danielle:

I don’t do you do you use the Microsoft?

Danielle:

You’re on google platform, right?

Danielle:

Yeah, So we use all google docs, spreadsheets, um whatever all the google options are, that’s what we use.

Brandon:

Just because we have so many different remote people, we want to make sure that everybody has access to the during google drive instead of sending attachments that people can’t open because I did it an Apple and they’re on Microsoft.

Brandon:

So yeah, we all keep google.

Danielle:

Yeah, so and this is gonna probably sound convoluted to you as I go through this.

Brandon:

But um it’s just that we’ve sort of picked the best of what’s out there to do the job.

Danielle:

I do not like I will use google numbers for some things if we have to share.

Danielle:

But I don’t like google numbers, it doesn’t have the power that Microsoft Excel has.

Danielle:

I mean if you’re really building models and spreadsheets and things like that and some people out there and be saying google google number or google, whatever it’s called, sheets can do the same thing Brennan, you’re just not up to speed maybe, but but I used to build really big models and the best model program is Excel for Windows, but I’m not a Windows guy.

Danielle:

So I uh and we sort of pain through that.

Danielle:

So we use google enterprise, we put most of our files in google in google drive, We have one.

Danielle:

What we found is we have one person who is allowed to organize the folders, so not anybody is allowed to just go in there and you know if I said hey Danielle go in there and just drop drop a document, you’re not allowed to go in there and just create a folder and drop the document.

Danielle:

And the reason is because everybody files differently and then everybody files differently and then none of us know where to find anything.

Danielle:

So what we found is sort of a pain for that person.

Danielle:

But the point person, it’s really no different than for people who build software that you’d have a scrum master who’s in charge of running your daily stand up and in charge of the board, which we’ll get to later.

Danielle:

So we found that one point person and sometimes we have a point person for uh, it we have an operations person and maybe one other person, but in general there’s point people who can create folders and you have to follow that paradigm so that at least one of us understands the damn filing system and confines him.

Danielle:

Yeah, for sure.

Danielle:

So we sort of jumped through that and then for communications internally we use slack.

Danielle:

Um, we’re seeing that you use slack a lot actually we do.

Danielle:

So I use slack because it has an app on your phone.

Danielle:

I have a desktop app here.

Danielle:

I’ve been a little negligent in in checking in as, I mean it’s up on my screen somewhere here.

Danielle:

But um, everybody likes slack because of the integrations that it has and you can, you know, break out a channel and talk about something and then keep all your assets there and it’s quick and it works a little better than text.

Danielle:

I think the irony of all of these platforms is that it always works best when you just start because then everybody can find everything ultimately what’s happened to us and it still happens, you know, we haven’t fixed it.

Danielle:

I mentioned to you I built this little athlete eight years ago that took all your comes in one place, but um, at the time no one wants to pay for it and I didn’t think that was a good business model.

Danielle:

But the uh, the challenges is that you get all this stuff and I’m looking at at year in slack between all the channels and all the divisions and then you can’t remember whether it’s in slack, whether it’s an email or another place.

Danielle:

So we haven’t solved that problem, but slack works well.

Danielle:

We also have a little add on to slack that we found it’s not micromanaging the guys actually like it.

Brandon:

Some part of our company people didn’t, but it’s a thing that every day comes on and as we call it, the stand up and it’s a little bit that says, what’s it say?

Danielle:

It says, what’s the biggest accomplishment from today?

Danielle:

What’s one thing that you want to accomplish tomorrow and is uh, oh, do you need help from someone?

Danielle:

Where is something blocking you from accomplishing your work?

Danielle:

So, uh, we do those three things mainly because that way we’re all communicating with one another without communicating.

Danielle:

It’s not really a check in.

Danielle:

I don’t use that and nobody uses it to manage, so to speak.

Danielle:

Like, hey Danielle, you didn’t do enough work yesterday, That’s not what it what it is.

Danielle:

It’s, do you need help.

Danielle:

And if one of us says, oh well it says Brandon hasn’t signed this thing and it’s holding up the process then, you know, that’s a good way to communicate.

Danielle:

So it’s this little boat that comes on, um every day and and says, hey, Brandon you gotta check in what do you want to do and it does help you get organized.

Danielle:

I know, you know, that can become cumbersome, but it’s sort of nice to get up in the morning and know what you’re gonna do versus having to make it up, right?

Danielle:

And you know what I like that, that you were just saying about that little, but it’s, it was very positive instead of like you said, bitching about not having enough work done.

Danielle:

It’s it’s a very positive thing when a little thing comes up, right?

Danielle:

And it says nice little things like that instead of just get your ship together.

Danielle:

Yeah, like that’s just not and that’s not our culture.

Danielle:

Like, I mean the way we hire to basically um, Yvonne Chouinard, who was the founder of Patagonia said it in a book, just stuck with me a long time mainly because it’s sort of a play on NBA that That I spent $110,000 to get and I don’t regret.

Danielle:

But um, his NBA was management by absence and um, basically saying, hey look, we hire people and we trust them to do the work, you gotta do the work.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

And we do the same right?

Danielle:

Like we go through our training program.

Danielle:

If we trust that, you know, if you’re with us after that we trust that you’re going to do the job, You’re going to represent the company.

Danielle:

Well you’re a valued asset to our team.

Danielle:

We’re not going to send you nasty emails going like what the f did you do yesterday?

Brandon:

Clearly nothing blah blah blah.

Brandon:

Like we’re very positive enforcement here as well at domestic divas cleaning co yeah, I think that’s the way to go.

Danielle:

I think that the um I think it can be hard for people to work from home or work or work remotely or to have that responsibility, but that’s the gig and I don’t really care if you can do your job.

Danielle:

You know, we pay for the for the job meaning if you’re an engineer, we pay you to be an engineer and do what an engineer would do.

Danielle:

But maybe there’s some rock star engineers which we have that can do the work in eight, you know, in four hours that would took maybe someone ate and who am I to judge that.

Brandon:

Um So yeah, in general, that’s what that little plug in.

Danielle:

I wish I knew what I get the bill.

Danielle:

But I don’t remember.

Danielle:

We call it Yoda but it’s called something else.

Danielle:

Yeah, so it’s a little Yoda dude.

Danielle:

Uh Brandon.

Danielle:

Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt you back to tell you.

Danielle:

Um Samantha and I and some of our office management, we were discussing about the issue what we were talking about last time or the time before about getting things that we bring up in our meetings.

Danielle:

Actually done.

Danielle:

i.

Danielle:

E downloading an app or signing a document and so we have implemented as of the new year that our Monday morning meetings or 20 minutes longer to allocate time to do that.

Danielle:

So you’d be proud of me.

Danielle:

So so so what what is the new, what is the new?

Danielle:

Yeah what is what is this?

Danielle:

So I think I told you before we do our monday morning meetings, right?

Danielle:

We go through our vision, our focus, our mission statement read the same thing every week.

Danielle:

I’m not saying that in a bad way but it’s that’s the that’s the format as a reminder to everybody.

Danielle:

Hey here’s what we do with domestic divas.

Danielle:

Here’s why we’re here here’s what’s driving our work this week.

Danielle:

Exactly, right.

Danielle:

And then we discuss um you know last week accomplishment things to work on, you know things that we need to discuss as a company in all divisions.

Danielle:

We do one for everyone um you know everything like that.

Danielle:

So now we’ve implemented um if there’s things that need to be done, i.

Danielle:

E.

Danielle:

We just implemented a deeper rewards program for our cruise because you know there’s always those great people that deserve to be rewarded and it’s just a little bit of more of an incentive.

Danielle:

So we’ve implemented that we emailed that out and everything that we change.

Danielle:

Obviously we want people to acknowledge so they know what’s going on.

Danielle:

So we always say you know please acknowledge this or please ensure that this is done or whatever and then we get two out of 30 respond going yep good to go and nobody else so we don’t know if they’re getting it, we don’t know if they even know what’s going on, we don’t know if they understand it.

Danielle:

And so I said to Samantha, let’s use Brandon’s tip and instead of sending it out on an email we will bring it up in the meeting and then we’ll get everybody to doc.

Danielle:

You sign it that day in the meeting so everybody is good and up to speed.

Danielle:

Yeah, I think that’s great.

Brandon:

Works right.

Brandon:

Or maybe you don’t haven’t tested it long enough but it gives people the time to do it because it’s just like we were talking about, I don’t think people, you will say after we get off, oh yeah Brandon send me that picture and then and then and then you’ll send the picture on friday or on thursday instead of on monday.

Danielle:

I’m not saying that you do that, I’m just saying that I may have done that.

Danielle:

So I think I’m just saying that’s what happens right.

Danielle:

I’m guilty.

Danielle:

I got it.

Danielle:

I told somebody in a meeting that I would get this document to them and I have not gotten the document to them and the reason is I just haven’t allocated that time to do it.

Danielle:

Whereas if I would have done it then so I’m I’m as guilty as anybody, but I think if you can stay disciplined to that, you know, some people, it might make people uncomfortable for a minute, like, you know, like you’re sitting there watching and do their homework, but, but at least everybody’s doing it at the same time, because you’re going to spend that time anyway, right, I’ll be interested to see how that experiment works for you.

Brandon:

Yeah, I’ll tell you how it goes after we do it a few times and, you know, I thought of it almost like a positive thing as well, because instead we’re relying on, you know, you’ve done your shift on a thursday, you’ve received this email most of the time, people are laying, you know, on the couch, having a tea or something or a glass of wine, reading these emails, do they really want to spend time doing that, signing back their acknowledgement and stuff like that.

Brandon:

If we do it on a monday morning, everybody’s in work mode, everybody’s, you know, getting paid their shift to do it.

Danielle:

So you already there, you’re getting paid for it, let’s just do it all together and Daniel’s happy, so I’ll let you know how that goes.

Danielle:

Yeah, um we’ve tried it and it works.

Danielle:

I mean, like I said, it’s a little uncomfortable at first, especially if you’re if you haven’t done that before, because they’re like, wow, this sort of feels like, like I said, like you’re, You know, 3rd grade, getting watched do your whatever, but um I actually think it helps people, so that’s awesome, I think Yeah, uh so we use slack, we use that little bot that comes up every day and then for project management we use this won’t sound like we have our stuff together but we actually do.

Danielle:

So we use Tremolo which is uh project management software, it’s used by software people, but it’s also used for just general project management.

Danielle:

We found it pretty easy.

Danielle:

It has cards, has all these automation is that I did not do but JIA did.

Danielle:

So it can create um it can create checklists on the fly.

Danielle:

So if it says hey Brandon you you need to have that november article done or uh it will come up with a checklist of everything that needs to be done.

Danielle:

So it’s sort of template it in that way and then automated and we, we try to keep the trailer board with every single project.

Danielle:

We have even ideas are on there and JIA, um my extraordinary operations lady is in charge of that because I fail at that regularly.

Danielle:

Right?

Danielle:

I mean I would like to be better at it, but instead I always find myself sending her a text so I just was like, hey look let’s just agree that you’re gonna do the board and you’re not going to rely on me because because it because it doesn’t work like should it work, it should, maybe it should, but I’m I I don’t do it.

Danielle:

I mean that’s just the fact I just don’t do it.

Danielle:

It’s like Simon your timecard.

Danielle:

I suck at that.

Danielle:

I mean who doesn’t suck at that.

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

Right.

Brandon:

I agree.

Brandon:

Sam is the same for me, right?

Danielle:

Like I kind of create like think of all these creative things and put them in our idea board and she’s the one that actually goes okay.

Danielle:

So how are we going to plan this?

Danielle:

How you know, she’ll put everything in motion and I’m like this is what we just want to do and then she actually comes up with the realistic plan for it.

Brandon:

So I Salmon G are very similar.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Brandon:

I mean they’re one they’re like superheroes.

Brandon:

Um because without that we wouldn’t have any organization or it wouldn’t exist on my written pad, which used to work.

Brandon:

But not when you have a lot of people working with you and for you.

Brandon:

It just doesn’t.

Brandon:

So we use cello for that.

Danielle:

The software engineers actually used the era and jerry is is at is owned by adolescent which the public company but they gear up.

Danielle:

Software is really good.

Danielle:

It’s very similar to trail.

Danielle:

Oh but a little bit more techy but it allows them to run sprints and one company that we have outside of the edge media company does actually use it for their operations.

Brandon:

So they decided because software drives a lot of this one cos work that they just all wanted to be on here.

Danielle:

And I was like look, I don’t care what you use.

Danielle:

I just care that we have organization documentation so that we can set these goals so they adopted the exact same thing.

Danielle:

So I think you could use gear or Tremolo interchangeably for product company or a software company, even a services company but Kira is a little bit more techy.

Danielle:

It’s not as um user friendly.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

And I mean just listening to you talk about the different options and what you guys need to have, even just down to those automated checklists.

Brandon:

That is one thing that I genuinely enjoy about job or as well.

Danielle:

Right.

Brandon:

So um like for an example if we have one of our managers doing an inspection on one of our staff members, um not that that’s a negative thing.

Brandon:

It’s just we conduct them to ensure quality within the company and everybody’s on the same standards and in there if we put an inspection it automatically pulls the inspection checklist.

Brandon:

Yes we have to set that up with onboarding and stuff like that but it automatically pulls it.

Brandon:

So then you know, we don’t have to have a different system for this checklist and she doesn’t have to make notes on her phone.

Danielle:

She doesn’t have to put in a note pad or a printable, it’s all there right, the system will automatically pull it.

Danielle:

And that’s one thing that I’m so thankful for because if we have to do That for every job task and you know, the system will automatically do it.

Danielle:

But if we have to do that like we wouldn’t be as efficient.

Danielle:

Um, at all because you know, you’re using 10 different systems for the same thing.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

And it probably sounds like we were doing that, which I guess maybe it’s some, some level we are Jabar sounds like a great program.

Danielle:

I looked at it just for our listeners.

Danielle:

You don’t own anything in job or do you or have any, I’m just, I’m just disclosing for our listeners because sometimes shows can become infomercials.

Danielle:

I don’t own anything that I’ve talked about except I do own sales for stock which owns slack.

Danielle:

But like this podcast isn’t going to move that.

Danielle:

And I do own and I do own adolescent stock, which is a public company, but I don’t think this is going to move the needle there.

Danielle:

I bought it because we use it.

Danielle:

And I know that that company is a really strong company that has multiple plug ins, multiple types of project management.

Danielle:

And I know that the software engineering community uses it religiously.

Danielle:

I mean it’s just been the best program.

Danielle:

So I’m just fully disclosed.

Danielle:

Um, I don’t think I own any interest in.

Danielle:

We’ll see.

Danielle:

I own google, but I don’t know if that counts.

Danielle:

I just want to be fully disclosed for the FTC.

Danielle:

If they listen that we’re not doing an infomercial, we’re just talking about what we actually use and love, I mean yeah, I mean no, I’m definitely not co owner or anything of job or I absolutely just love them.

Danielle:

You know, we talked about my journey of trying to find the right systems and stuff and job has been a godsend.

Danielle:

So if anybody that works with job or is on here, please never get rid of job because I need it.

Danielle:

I wrote the job her last week.

Danielle:

Did you?

Danielle:

Yeah, I told him that I was like, you know, I do this podcast with this lady.

Danielle:

She runs domestic divas.

Danielle:

She’s, you know, she’s grown her company on your whole platform.

Danielle:

You might want to check it out and listen.

Danielle:

Um so yeah, no, it’s great.

Danielle:

Honestly they’re super awesome.

Danielle:

So yeah, like we were talking about the services, anything like that really you could get, you could use job or for any of that, you know, construction, just anything really.

Brandon:

I mean, you know, even just a project management is great.

Brandon:

So yeah, I mean I would like to own a portion of job or that people write if they’re listening, we might be interested in investing the so we used here for that we use Tremolo and that really we do use, so I started using pages which is Apple’s word version mainly because it’s on the Apple platform, it integrates and honestly it sinks as we have found that it sinks as well at or as good as I don’t know what the right word as but it does as well as google documents and for us we mainly on the Apple.

Brandon:

All of us are except maybe one person um and the engineers are on UNIX or Linux box but we just found that for writing and whatnot.

Danielle:

It’s it’s been really good.

Danielle:

It’s also really good for design.

Danielle:

It just seems to work better if you want to design your articles and stuff.

Danielle:

So we use uh pages and then we do use numbers which is Apple’s Excel version and we just do that for we have a master I built it in Excel, then I exported it into numbers.

Danielle:

We have a master spreadsheet that runs all of our business.

Danielle:

So meaning in there we keep everything.

Danielle:

I have full financial model.

Danielle:

I have all of the waterfalls if you uh calm all the marketing things.

Danielle:

So each channel that we market on has the entire model built so that you can predict conversions and you can predict revenue.

Brandon:

That feeds into the cash flow statement which feeds into the P.

Brandon:

And L.

Brandon:

And then feeds into a summary.

Brandon:

Um So it’s a it’s a and in there we keep everything so we keep every podcast cast episode we keep a list of where we’ve appeared.

Brandon:

We have tabs for just about everything and what I learned was is I used to keep all that stuff in separate Excel files candidate.

Danielle:

Like I keep just our financial model then I would keep a list of the podcast because for some guests, some guests have booking agent, so you want to keep track of who that booking agent is so that you can book them in six months, you can remember instead of going through your email.

Danielle:

So we have just created a master sheet.

Danielle:

But what I will say is is that that master sheet in numbers is to that G.

Danielle:

And I and other people can share that, but I still use Excel for a lot of the bigger models because because of how easy it is.

Danielle:

So um that just habit, I’m not saying you have to do that and it sounds convoluted because if you’re keeping track and you’re listening you’re we use google docs, we use Excel and then we use Apple products.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

And I’m an Apple lover too.

Brandon:

Like we use Apple.

Brandon:

Um and that’s actually one thing that I like for a job or is that it is you can use it, you know, an android, whatever phone, whatever device because it’s all web based.

Danielle:

So, you know, you can really use it on anything and there’s an app on every device.

Danielle:

Um But yeah, like all of our stuff whether that be google sheets, I know you use Excel but for us it’s the same thing, honestly, I mean, I don’t know, I don’t use it to the extent that you do.

Brandon:

Um So maybe when it gets to that point, I will need a little bit better, maybe I’ll have to get your insight on excel.

Brandon:

Uh but google sheets, google dogs, all those things are good and we have quite an extensive list of um google sheets as well but they’re not all intertwined like yours are I like things to be separate, that’s my way of organization.

Danielle:

Yeah, I mean I just separate them in the tabs and the reason is because they all feed one another and if you do separate documents and you move the document it doesn’t dynamically find it on your computer so that that’s the challenge that we found there.

Danielle:

I mean listening to myself here and thinking about your operation, he was like you have a lot simpler life, you have job for, you have an accountant and you have google enterprise which you use for these other things, right?

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

I mean I as as much as I like things to have its own place and things to be organized in folders.

Danielle:

I like systems to be simple and that’s why I think I was so crazy about jobber because pre job or you know there were different things so we could use Salesforce for our staff schedules.

Danielle:

We could use there was one at one point we used I think it’s called like monday or something monday um or something like that.

Danielle:

So we were gonna try that for scheduling then we were going to try, there was another one that was just a checklist platform.

Danielle:

So but they could integrate, so then we could use this integration with this one and you know, but then we found jobber and it was like okay we don’t need all those things.

Danielle:

So it’s almost like Brandon you need to create or invent something that has all those platforms that you need into one.

Danielle:

I think you’re smart enough to do it, I think you could do it.

Danielle:

Yeah, that’s it’s a big task.

Danielle:

Uh It’s uh it’s uh it’s a monumental undertaking and a lot of people have failed at that, so I don’t know it’s a good idea, but I’m gonna let someone else figure that out.

Danielle:

At least for today.

Danielle:

I’m gonna I got a soft piece of software.

Danielle:

I’m trying to use just to find files.

Danielle:

If if I could just find my files in my email better.

Danielle:

You’re 87,000 emails.

Danielle:

Yeah, 87,000.

Danielle:

I don’t know what it is today.

Danielle:

What?

Danielle:

It’s a good thing.

Danielle:

Maybe we should keep track of every week.

Danielle:

Uh This week is, Well I don’t know, 87,663 with 16,760 on red.

Danielle:

That’s insanity.

Danielle:

But some of some of those are on rules on newsletters that I put into folders that maybe on a weekend, I’ll go and read them.

Danielle:

So uh I don’t know that’s just how we talked about it, that’s how I manage my email, I just decided that’s not going to be zero inbox.

Danielle:

And what ever, I just don’t care like what what needs to happen is there needs to be a good search.

Danielle:

And that’s what, you know, as a side little hustle here, I’m going to build because if you had that, you don’t need to organize.

Danielle:

It’s true.

Danielle:

It’s true.

Danielle:

And I mean, even myself, like I have emails that, you know, are probably from three months ago that I haven’t read, but it’s not a priority, right?

Danielle:

So we were talking like my cell phone is always very organized.

Danielle:

Like our office and company emails are very organized personally.

Danielle:

If I see it and it’s important, I’ll deal with it.

Brandon:

If I leave it there, that means I have to deal with it.

Brandon:

But it’s not top priority right now.

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

And I figure if it makes it three weeks and no one written back and it probably wasn’t a big priority, right?

Danielle:

If they don’t go just following up on this, right?

Danielle:

And if I don’t get to it, which isn’t on purpose, it just didn’t happen.

Danielle:

And they rewrite, then I’ll remember and I know that’s not a a great system, but when you’re inundated with as many emails as you and I probably get on a daily basis.

Brandon:

Like what are you gonna do?

Danielle:

I don’t have time, I don’t want to sit at my box all day long.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

And I mean sometimes you have to, you know, it’s just uh it’s just kind of goes with the business, but I don’t know.

Brandon:

And I apologize if any of my clients are listening and hopefully it’s not you that I’m going to say this about.

Brandon:

But there’s been times where I’ve gotten an email from a client and it’s like, you know, nine a.m. And it’s, hey, just checking in on such and such, 12 30 comes around for three hours and they go, hey, just making sure you got my email from this morning.

Brandon:

And I’m thinking, okay since you’ve emailed me the first time I’ve done three days worth of work or you know, eight conference calls or whatever.

Brandon:

I part of me wants to write back and go, can you just hold the gone for one second, I’ll get back to my promise.

Danielle:

Um But then I’m like, okay.

Brandon:

And then I’ll just quickly respond, right?

Danielle:

But sometimes it’s frustrating because I swear people think all I do is sit in front of this computer and just respond to emails day in and day out and like I don’t have a phone or an office line or contracts or anything like that to deal with, right?

Danielle:

And I think people care, no, you’re right.

Danielle:

I think people only care about them.

Danielle:

I don’t mean this in a bad way, but just think about that.

Brandon:

You’re like, I mean even, yeah, I’m not making excuses for him.

Danielle:

I mean I do not like that.

Danielle:

Like someone will send me an email and then they’ll text me, Hey, I sent you an email.

Danielle:

Uh thank you.

Brandon:

If I didn’t tell you to do that, please don’t do that.

Danielle:

Now.

Danielle:

Now I’m probably not going to read your email.

Brandon:

That’s just a reaction.

Brandon:

But yeah, thanks for telling me.

Danielle:

I mean, I just don’t need all these messages.

Brandon:

So yeah, what, what’s that?

Danielle:

I saw it.

Danielle:

Thank you.

Brandon:

You know, I get it where people will text me and I won’t answer the text.

Brandon:

So then they’ll call me.

Danielle:

And the reason I don’t answer the text is because I’m doing a podcast with you and I’m like, okay, it’s not really that important.

Brandon:

I’ll deal with that one.

Brandon:

We’re done.

Danielle:

Then they’ll call me while I’m on the podcast.

Danielle:

And I feel like saying like I’m, let’s put them on the call, let’s put them on here and talk to them.

Danielle:

What do you have to say?

Danielle:

Um You know what’s funny actually, this isn’t business wise.

Danielle:

This is like mom wise, my mom, the worst for this.

Danielle:

She will text hey, you know, how’s your day?

Brandon:

Just because she’s a mom and she’s also busy.

Danielle:

She owns a mortgage brokerage and she’s also very busy, but she’s in her office.

Brandon:

She doesn’t travel.

Brandon:

She likes to just be in her office and she’ll go home and she spends time with her dogs and her husband and just, you know, live on their, their little ranch style property and they love life, right?

Danielle:

And so she’ll text me and I won’t answer because I’m clearly busy.

Brandon:

Then she’ll call me and I won’t answer because I’m driving or I’m doing something else or I’m gonna call or I know that the conversation is not going to be a two minute conversation, so I don’t have half an hour to talk to you right now, mom and then she’ll call me three times.

Danielle:

Are you okay?

Brandon:

You know, So I’m like, yes mom, I’m good.

Brandon:

I’ll call you in a bit.

Brandon:

You know, I’ll call you when I’m not so busy and that’s an awful thing because she’s my mom and I love her dearly, but I’m like, okay, clearly I’m busy. I can’t answer the first time I’ll call you later.

Brandon:

Yeah, I think that’s a hard one. But what I learned is what you just did and it’s, it’s not annoying to me.

Danielle:

So I hate to say that, right?

Danielle:

But it’s not annoying.

Danielle:

It just, you just gotta communicate like, hey, I got your message. I, I found, you know, it can be hard because you’re, I don’t know what type of any anybody depends on type of person you are.

Danielle:

But you know, I’m like, just leave me alone. But then, but I hate to say that. But you know, I just write back, hey, I’m busy. I got your message, you can’t talk right now. Sorry, uh, I’m, you know, something that always, sorry, it’s just that’s what it is.

Danielle:

Um you know, I feel bad about it, but I can’t do it right now.

Danielle:

So yeah, I think communication that I’ve learned over the years just in general communication and anything, whether it’s business, whether it’s relationships, whether it’s your spouse, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your friend in general, most disagreements, misunderstandings and whatever you want to call them are a result of not communicating and and one of each of you or multiple, it’s of a group have made stories up in your head that may or may not be true If that’s 100% true.

Danielle:

Um I’ve I’ve learned that and I mean maybe we could have another episode about this maybe let you know, but you know I actually I’m keeping track of our I’m not I’m not that inept.

Danielle:

I mean gee I hope you’re listening.

Danielle:

I’m not, I’ve taken the notes of all of our things and you get a shared note from you and I with the updated and it has a checklist.

Danielle:

Now, I don’t know if you saw it this week.

Danielle:

Did I just don’t get offended when I say this, I don’t know, it’s like JIA actually hooked up to your I am a little offended by that but offended is about me being offended.

Danielle:

So no, I’m not offended but um yes that is actually me, I have actually had to not regulate, but the tendency maybe I have to, I have this uh, you haven’t seen it or maybe you have, I have this chart on how to decide whether to do something or not.

Danielle:

So I actually have a, I’ll see if I can find it here a chart but I’ll finish my thought now delegate chart.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Brandon:

Like should I do it, should I do it at all and should I delegate or not?

Brandon:

I actually built it into a formula.

Danielle:

It’s a little software program, right?

Brandon:

You know, I’m not very techie.

Danielle:

So I love that you made this formula in this program.

Danielle:

But I kind of did the same thing about three years ago in like a notebook.

Danielle:

That’s what, that’s where it started in a notebook.

Brandon:

Yeah, I mean you gotta never really got further.

Danielle:

Like I didn’t make a cool software app over that.

Danielle:

I just wrote.

Danielle:

So actually I’m going to tell you how my, how I do that.

Danielle:

I’m gonna, you talk and I’m gonna try to find this for us so that we could check it out.

Danielle:

But yeah, we can cross reference our ideas to see if it was worth creating a software there.

Danielle:

So we uh I’m a part of this woman’s business owners group that’s Canada Wide.

Danielle:

I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it.

Danielle:

It’s called grow your visit was founded by a lovely woman named Barbara out of Alberta I believe.

Danielle:

And so once a month, um high achieving women get together and they do like a good two or three hour accountability to call.

Danielle:

So everybody talks about their stuff that they mentioned the month before, all of those things, but two years.

Brandon:

I know it sounds like a mastermind.

Brandon:

Yeah, it is, it’s it’s a mastermind.

Brandon:

Um and it’s nice because we’re all accountable with each other, like it’s great.

Brandon:

And so do you pay for it?

Danielle:

Sorry?

Brandon:

Yeah, it’s a quarterly subscription.

Danielle:

Okay.

Brandon:

Go ahead.

Danielle:

Um Which I think is good because it keeps, oh I think you I think yeah, if you don’t pay for things, you’re not going to take it serious.

Brandon:

You’re not, I’m sorry.

Brandon:

Like people people will say, well you should give this away for free or this that and the other we’re giving you were giving you free advice right now.

Brandon:

Yeah, I hope that you can pay for your subscriptions.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Brandon:

Like yeah, I mean well whatever subscription that is.

Danielle:

But yeah, the point is, yeah.

Brandon:

So if you pay, we agree if you don’t pay, you’re not going to take it seriously.

Danielle:

It’s like downloading a free e book, you’re gonna it could have a huge amount of value, but it’s gonna sit in your download folder.

Brandon:

But if you pay 3 99 or 9 99 or 29 99 or even 100 bucks for it.

Danielle:

You’ll probably read it but go ahead.

Brandon:

I agree.

Danielle:

So yeah, it’s a quarterly subscription, I think it ends up being like 100 and 50 bucks a month or something which, you know, some people may say it’s expensive, but at the same time, like you said, it’s it’s added value, it’s so great, it keeps you accountable, whatever.

Danielle:

So um about almost three years ago we were chatting and at this point I was in the hunt for help, like office staff, executive assistant, whatever.

Brandon:

I just needed something more because at the time I was doing a lot and so I said to them, how do you guys delegate, how do you guys choose to have not only an office exact, a personal assistant to general manager, like how do you make that decision?

Danielle:

And so one of the ladies, she said um depending on what you’re looking for.

Danielle:

Um so in this instance it was the girl that I had, that was pre Sam um she was also super awesome.

Danielle:

She wasn’t as active as Samantha, she did more of the back off the stuff.

Brandon:

She wasn’t as active with our clients and stuff, Sam kind of just does everything and she’s amazing that way.

Brandon:

Um So anyway, so we were chatting and they said when you’re doing something and you’re feeling overwhelmed and you don’t want to do it because you’re overwhelmed, make a note.

Brandon:

So for months straight I literally had like three charts like I love doing this, I kind of hate doing this and I effing hate doing and so I did that and and by the end of it, it was things like answering emails from clients that were like, again, I hate saying this, I’m sorry if my clients are listening, but Stupid questions, things that, you know, they kind of know or they should know and they’re just confirming and things like that.

Brandon:

That was wasting a lot of my time.

Brandon:

The 87,000 emails that were sitting in my inbox of a client asking something that really I was like, really like, you should know this already.

Brandon:

And I’m kind of resented even answering because a part of me just wanted to like give him a smack.

Brandon:

So those are the things that I put in my delegate, I absolutely hate.

Brandon:

So after about a month I came up with this list and then that was how I created the job description for what I needed to hire and you know, it was, you know, mail outs and newsletters and things that I love to do, but um things that I really could have somebody else do, and I just approve it, which would cut out a whole lot of time.

Brandon:

So that’s what we did.

Brandon:

So I mean, yeah, I didn’t have to come up with a fancy app to do it, but it sounds like probably the same thing.

Brandon:

Yeah, I don’t think you always have to, but I’m going to show you this if you’re not watching this, um I have to figure out how to get you a download.

Brandon:

If you, if you want to download it.

Brandon:

This is a pdf, you can write me be at Brandon, See white dot com and I will get it.

Brandon:

Can you see this?

Brandon:

Uh Yeah.

Danielle:

Oh, look at you, you’re a little cartoon man.

Danielle:

I love it.

Danielle:

So I’m just going to show you the pdf and then there is a program that that we have that we’ve we’ve sent out to people, but so basically isn’t important.

Danielle:

And this all goes back to, yes, it’s me sharing the note with you, but this is what I had it when I started to say and didn’t finish was was that I’ve had to actually, we got g a virtual assistant because the amount of work was, it just started to get and she is really good about it.

Danielle:

I mean she never complains or anything like that and it’s just not like that we’re in total sync.

Brandon:

We’ve been working together for seven or 8 years now.

Danielle:

And but what I realized was I was like, oh well joe do that.

Danielle:

If you do that, do you have to do that?

Danielle:

We’ll get you to do that.

Danielle:

And eventually I was like, yeah, there’s no way he is doing all this in a week, like it’s just not realistic.

Danielle:

Um She does timekeeping for one of our are companies and we do use t sheets for that, which is a plug into quicken, which is another thing that we do use for projects that need time when we get invoiced from vendors and we record the time and we require them to log the time, but you still have to export that and you still have to put it into an invoice and yeah, you got it.

Danielle:

So Gea does all that and you know, right, that takes a lot of time.

Danielle:

Um, so what I had to figure out was one what I was going to actually do myself.

Danielle:

So for JIA too upload notes to you just seemed trivial to me when I’m taking notes and I take notes.

Danielle:

We talked about this last week, you have a notebook which I used to use but then we talked about, I couldn’t figure out how well then what we were doing is I was numbering the pages, I would put the title of every single, I don’t have one of them here, they’re, they’re in the house.

Danielle:

But um, I would put the title of what the meeting was uh, and then I would put some other metadata like meeting and I had a code.

Danielle:

So a round circle was need to do now Hollow circle do later.

Danielle:

A star was just a note three lines was a meeting and I had all these codes in my notebook so that I could find things later and then what we would do is we would number each of the pages that use moleskin notebook and then I started to but I asked JIA I would give the notebook when I was done Tujia and then she would build a table of contents so that you could actually find.

Danielle:

Because one of the things is I’ve got, I don’t know how many notebooks do you have that you felt up?

Danielle:

I honestly, honestly I can’t even count.

Danielle:

They’re all in a box under my desk.

Danielle:

There’s so many and there’s probably so many good ideas.

Danielle:

So much information in there.

Danielle:

That would be great to find and keep or access.

Danielle:

Right?

Danielle:

So we numbered apology did a great job number what I had and then built table contents for a bunch of them.

Danielle:

Eventually I was like let’s just scrap this and let’s figure out a better system.

Danielle:

That’s when I got the ipad and I did a bunch of research and have good notes which allows me to take notes on my ipad in handwriting.

Danielle:

And then you can search the handwriting.

Danielle:

What search automatically.

Danielle:

And then it also shares Tujia.

Danielle:

So JIA can see if I’m in a meeting, she can see me taking the notes.

Danielle:

If she wants to go back and find something then she can find those notes.

Danielle:

And that solved just a huge issue for her and I about sharing information because if I have that written notebook then what was happening, I don’t know how you and Samantha.

Danielle:

Right is your lady?

Danielle:

Oh sorry yes.

Danielle:

Samantha.

Danielle:

Yes.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Danielle:

Oh I was like, are you texting me?

Brandon:

No.

Brandon:

Um, is I was taking a picture of it and then I was sending it to her, here’s my notes and that just, and then I’m going back to when that sounds like a simple thing.

Danielle:

Just take a picture of it and send it for whatever reason, it just interrupts your pattern.

Danielle:

So I had to figure out how much I work I was really going to give you.

Danielle:

But anyway, let’s get to this.

Danielle:

So this is what I coded on whether to eliminate, delegate or do myself.

Danielle:

So is it important?

Danielle:

Do I care if the answer is no, just eliminate it.

Danielle:

If the answer is I do care then can I control or have an impact on that event?

Danielle:

If the answer is no, then I eliminate it.

Danielle:

If the answer is yes, then I ask myself will I enjoy it.

Danielle:

If the answer is no, then I ask is it income related or will build wealth if the answer is yes, can I delegate it?

Brandon:

If the answer is no, I added to the calendar.

Danielle:

If I can delegate it, then I assign it to JIA or another one of our people.

Danielle:

So and you can see here, I’m leaving it up on the screen.

Danielle:

Um, and for those listeners who are just listening on the podcast, if you email me, I will send you this pdf but this is basic and then we, we took this and we turned it into code.

Danielle:

And um to be honest, just for non tech people, we now we, I just, I asked and JIA actually did it, but she turned that we use google forms to hack this.

Danielle:

So we just because google forms, you can have conditional questions.

Danielle:

So we just took our formula and put it in there.

Danielle:

And then what we did is we actually sent it to our email list of listeners and then we tested it and said, does this work?

Danielle:

And now we built a little app that will be on the website.

Danielle:

So but more so for me than anybody because if you follow that, you don’t have to think about things, right?

Danielle:

It makes it really simple.

Danielle:

Like, yeah, I mean if you’re not going to, if you enjoy it, then you decide if you’re not, then you eliminate it.

Danielle:

I mean, and that’s really what it took me to figure that out.

Danielle:

I don’t know, we sort of got off on a tangent again.

Danielle:

But um, maybe I should finish up.

Danielle:

I kind of want to ask a little question to you and maybe some listeners can trip on this or think about this.

Danielle:

So talking about obviously we needed the help.

Danielle:

Um, you know, whether it be a V A N E A O A OE, whatever it may be.

Danielle:

We all needed help because eventually, you know, I could not and I’m going to be very honest about this.

Danielle:

I’m sure you as well you could not do your day to day without your team.

Danielle:

I I couldn’t you can’t have a company without a team that’s just know exactly and I mean it doesn’t matter how much you love to do it, you couldn’t do it all.

Danielle:

So when you first and I don’t know if you did it recently or not recently but within the last 5 to 10 years or if you’ve always had an office exact or an e A.

Danielle:

Or anything like that.

Danielle:

Did you ever feel guilty about sitting here and going I don’t want to do this but I’m going to give it to somebody else and pay them for it.

Danielle:

Like it took a while for me and I thought about that a lot.

Danielle:

You know there’s sometimes where even now I will get something and you know somebody will say can you come and do this or one of our locations will say hey can you guys come and do an inspection or can you guys have a conference call with us about this and I don’t really want to do that and then I’ll call one of our managers or or you know, something like that and I still to this day sometimes feel guilty about it.

Brandon:

So is that something you’ve ever experienced?

Brandon:

Uh giving something to the idea that you don’t want to do or one of your other assistance.

Brandon:

I think you know it’s an interesting question.

Danielle:

I think that uh my first answer was going to be, well, I don’t like to delegate it because I think I can always do it better, but that, but that’s actually not always true because, you know, I generally want people who are smarter than me in these areas, so a lot of the time um I think the answer is, yes, I feel bad.

Brandon:

I don’t know that guilt is the word, but I have felt bad, like, geez man, I’m putting this on them and then I’m like, you know what one?

Brandon:

They’re better at it too, is we pay them well well and, and fair.

Brandon:

Um and three, they want to do it because that’s why they were hired to do it, which shows that they can do their job, which gives them something to show off.

Brandon:

But, you know, back to your question, not avoiding it.

Brandon:

I do feel bad, right?

Brandon:

Like, hey, I need this thing.

Brandon:

X, y, z, can you pump this out?

Brandon:

It’s like you’re thinking to yourself, well, Brennan, like shouldn’t you do that?

Danielle:

But I don’t have time to do that, right?

Danielle:

I mean, so, yeah, I think there’s a guilt would be further on the spectrum and maybe feeling bad is guilt and maybe I’m just rationalizing that.

Danielle:

Um But yeah, I think, I think you can feel bad to do that, but at the same token, um I’ve gotten used to it in the sense that it’s such ah force multiplier.

Danielle:

Yeah, that you, if you don’t do it, you will crumble drowned yourself, You will work 17 hours a day and you will eventually burn out and not want to do whatever you’re doing right, and and it’s so true, and I just kinda wanted your insight on that because, you know, not only with our management and again, like you said, that’s what they’re hired for, that is their job right to be a leader or to do management or to do whatever.

Danielle:

And we actually um here in Orangeville, there’s a lovely woman, she’s also a Godsend named Tish that she works with us and she has her own small business doing kind of like an errands service for other businesses, so she will delegate us a day and her other clients today and she will basically do whatever our whole company doesn’t have time for.

Danielle:

So obviously in the cleaning industry, we deal a lot with like dry cleaning.

Danielle:

Um we take a lot of our clients who say for example have investment properties and Airbnb s, we take the sheets, get them laundered, get them taken back.

Danielle:

So Tish pretty much like 90% of the day or her allocated time is spent doing that.

Danielle:

And initially she, like, I knew that we needed to do this.

Danielle:

Samantha’s like, okay daniel, like we really need somebody to do this, and I’m thinking, okay, we can get like, we can pay one of our staff to it.

Danielle:

I’m not hiring somebody to just leave them a list of ship that we don’t have time to do, you know because it’s not like it’s project management, you pay them for it and that’s what their business is.

Danielle:

I know but I said this petition again, I’m sure Tisha listen to this at some point but I texted her and she goes okay you ready to go for Tuesday?

Danielle:

And I said I’m gonna be honest, I feel so bad asking you to do this stuff.

Danielle:

And she she said exactly that she said Danielle it’s to make your company’s life easier.

Danielle:

Um You know to to not give one of my specialized individuals who is a manager and great at their job, you know managing and training people to get them to go and pick up dry cleaning, right?

Danielle:

That’s what Tish does.

Danielle:

So yeah it’s something to get used to for sure when you’re leaving tasks and even like in our in our job or she has her own profile and every week our whole crew, all of our staff, if there’s something that needs to be done it gets put in and Tish has a task list to do for that day.

Danielle:

Um you know, dry cleaning supplies, equipment, pick up, drop off whatever it may be and so yeah we had to get used to that.

Danielle:

So um I just wanted your insight on that because it was something that we definitely deal or you know struggled with um initially whether it was A.

Danielle:

S.

Danielle:

O.

Danielle:

A’s.

Danielle:

Or or just help in general.

Danielle:

Yeah it was you were talking here’s what I don’t feel guilty about.

Danielle:

Um The one thing that I value more than anything is time.

Danielle:

So you will never you and I will never get that second.

Brandon:

Just that just now back again.

Brandon:

And when you start to think about it it will it can sort of blow your mind and people lose track of time.

Brandon:

When you get older as you start to get older, you realize how time, how little time we actually have here.

Brandon:

You know, maybe whatever happens after your dad.

Danielle:

Uh you know to T.

Brandon:

B.

Brandon:

D.

Brandon:

You know, I let you notice some day um Or not.

Danielle:

I mean I don’t I don’t I don’t know I’m not I’m not this isn’t a comment on faith, right?

Danielle:

Some people be like, well Brandon, you’re going to heaven, maybe, you know, if that’s the case then great, I’ll phone you from there.

Danielle:

But uh you know, wherever that is, I like Earth.

Danielle:

I mean I’m not saying that I wouldn’t be interested in living on another planet if it was cool.

Danielle:

But uh I I like Earth and I like living and there’s only so much time.

Danielle:

So when you start to put it in perspective, I guess here’s what here’s what happened, you said that and I was like yeah I sort of do feel guilty, but I really don’t feel guilty.

Danielle:

I just feel bad, right?

Danielle:

But then as soon as I’m sitting here listening to you talk and I and the and the time thing sparked in my mind, like I don’t feel guilty at all.

Danielle:

Um and the reason is because uh time is the most valuable asset.

Danielle:

People will say money is the biggest thing because it buys you time.

Danielle:

To me, time is the number one thing and all money is is a mechanism or a device that allows you to own more of your own time.

Danielle:

If you’re in business, you’re probably not going to own all of your time, meaning you have customers, they, you report to the customer whether I mean any business that doesn’t believe that, be interested to see your financials.

Danielle:

Yeah, right?

Danielle:

Like, and if you made it work like God bless you.

Danielle:

But the Yeah, I want to know that formula.

Danielle:

Yeah, exactly.

Danielle:

So you’re not gonna always own it, but you want to own as much as you can because you’re going, you know, you’re not going to get it back.

Danielle:

And um if you keep that mindset, which I’m not saying it’s easy, maybe you write it on your whiteboard somewhere in the corner, you know, then that can help you get over that guilt, fear feeling bad or whatever it is because um yeah, you’ll never get that unit back.

Danielle:

I 100% agree.

Danielle:

And I mean, you know if any kind of like startup or new businesses are listening, I get it.

Danielle:

I mean when we first started I couldn’t afford a full time office exact I couldn’t afford a full time assistant, I couldn’t even afford you know a dog walker.

Danielle:

Even as silly as this sounds like benny, you know he’s my life, my little dog and I work even though I own the company, I work ridiculous hours, so just having Tanya who is a godsend, come and walk Benny for an hour a day gives me peace of mind where you know I can be at the office, I can be wherever and I don’t have to stress about like oh my God, I gotta get off this color, I can’t do this this task because I have to go and let me out, You know it totally gives me peace of mind, it is worth the money 150%.

Danielle:

You know it’s whether I want to go get my nails done that our or or finish this project, you know I have that um that’s that freedom not that that’s going to be possible from the get go if you start a business tomorrow, it’s not gonna be able to be done by next week but that’s something to work towards, right like you said getting that time back like when I first started the company, I worked 20 hours a day, I was up at four gym by 4 30?

Danielle:

Get like do my workout, Go and get ready, go to work and be back by 11:00 at night like if it wasn’t healthy but it’s what I had to do to get to where we are now.

Danielle:

Yeah that’s uh another episode for us.

Danielle:

But I absolutely agree like you know there was a guest who wrote in this week and I’m not going to say her name but she wrote in and said that she was a she is a consultant who consults on work life balance balance and I think that’s all crap and I agree to what you just said if you want to start something from nothing uh there there is no balance like they you won’t I don’t want to say you won’t.

Brandon:

There are people who probably have done it and will right in or do something and say I did it Brennan you know what send me the formula, we’ll write a book and we’ll make a million dollars, maybe 100 million.

Danielle:

I mean you know and maybe that’s what tim Ferriss did with his four hour work week.

Danielle:

Although you know is that real?

Danielle:

I don’t know.

Danielle:

But um I just don’t see it, you can get to a four hour work week after you’ve put in 10, 15, 20 years of a lot of work.

Danielle:

Um Some businesses can grow further but there’s no about like there’s really no balance in the beginning because you don’t have, like you said, how do you, you can’t afford it if you don’t have the money right?

Danielle:

So how are you going to balance anything?

Brandon:

Like you’re not going to balance it and to have the pressure.

Brandon:

Like the zero inbox.

Brandon:

Well if you don’t have zero inbox, you’re not organized to have that pressure on top of it, how you’re feeling guilt.

Brandon:

Well Danielle, you know, did you talk to your mother for an hour today?

Brandon:

And did you like some days the fact is as much as I exercise and as diligent as I am on eating and exercising, there’s some days that it doesn’t happen.

Brandon:

Do I feel bad about it?

Brandon:

I do.

Danielle:

Do I not like it?

Danielle:

No, I don’t like it.

Danielle:

But does it happen?

Danielle:

Yeah because the damn newsletter doesn’t get written or you know the business plan doesn’t get done or the answer to the customer doesn’t get done or you just need an extra hour of sleep because you’re sucking exhausted.

Danielle:

Yeah.

Brandon:

Like exactly like that’s going to have that that’s going to happen.

Danielle:

That’s not a good balance now in my, you know, years later now.

Danielle:

You know sleep is a real big deal.

Danielle:

And I don’t always do I try to do really really good on that.

Danielle:

But I did my average this month and while my scores are very high.

Danielle:

Um And I generally told me this morning that I go to bed at about the same time and I have I go to bed around 10 30 10, 10 30.

Danielle:

Um But I only have three out of, so out of october five out of eight days have been 75 plus sleep score, which is what you’re aiming for.

Danielle:

Um So I’m only still batting at what?

Danielle:

+535 out of eight?

Danielle:

I don’t know that 70% like, you know, and I’m I’m not saying that I’m a pro, but I’ve been doing this thing business thing a long time.

Danielle:

Like just the balance is hard.

Danielle:

It is.

Danielle:

And like even down to your, like you said about Tim Ferriss with the four hour work week.

Danielle:

You know, I’m 55 years in.

Danielle:

I feel like I, for the most part know what I’m doing.

Danielle:

You know, I’m still learning every day.

Danielle:

There’s still new ship to deal with.

Danielle:

You know, even the whole covid thing, like we talked about, we had to adjust and pivot to that right?

Danielle:

Even if even me now I could get to a four hour work week.

Danielle:

I would probably have to hire three, Two or three full time people that do what I do to make me have a four hour work week.

Danielle:

That’s a lot.

Brandon:

That’s like what $150,000 a year extra that I would have to pay somebody at $75,000 salary to do what I do just so I could have a four hour work week?

Danielle:

You know what I mean?

Danielle:

Well the question is is it worth it, Can you afford it, do the margins allow for it and will it still get done?

Danielle:

And you know I don’t know the answer that.

Danielle:

And the other thing is is that if you like what you do right?

Danielle:

You know you have to ask yourself Do you want a four hour a week week?

Danielle:

No like you know what Brandon I say this all the time and we’ll wrap this up soon.

Danielle:

But I’m I’m young so and I say this to my friends everybody all the time if I was 50 and I started this company when I was 45 and I was working this hard at 50.

Danielle:

I still don’t have work life balance.

Danielle:

You still really don’t either.

Danielle:

I mean it’s you know it’s just something that comes with the business life, the entrepreneurial life.

Danielle:

If I was 50 I would probably want a four hour work week.

Danielle:

Are you okay Brendan?

Danielle:

Yeah I think I said 50.

Danielle:

No I’m just uh I don’t know what happened there.

Danielle:

But um Yeah I mean maybe you would or maybe you wouldn’t Right.

Danielle:

My dad’s 70 seven and he doesn’t want a four hour work week.

Danielle:

He likes, he likes, he loves what he does.

Danielle:

He’ll work till he’s dead like right.

Brandon:

Exactly.

Brandon:

So I mean even just down to the whole idea of the four hour work week.

Brandon:

If I was 50 maybe I want a four hour work week, I wouldn’t want to work this hard, I wouldn’t want to talk to 20 people a day, half hour piece, you know, deal with ship, whatever, Probably wouldn’t want to do it at 50 but I’m young, I still have time, I have a lot of time to grow the company to even more, you know, so I want to be in that growth mode.

Brandon:

I want to work these hours, I want to get this thing that I started even more, you know what I mean?

Danielle:

Um so, I mean as much as you know, bless tim ferris’s heart if he wants to work four hour work week.

Danielle:

I love what I do, I don’t think I could actually just do a four hour work week.

Danielle:

Honestly, like I love getting up doing a workout, having my breakfast or my shake, taking the dog out for a walk, going to the office, sitting like, you know what I mean?

Danielle:

I love that, I love what I do, I love chatting with my teams prepping things, talking with sam pulling our hair out because clients are driving us nuts, you know all those things, but it’s fun.

Brandon:

It’s part of like the life, right?

Brandon:

It is.

Brandon:

Um but we do need to wrap up for our listeners and probably for you and I um I am riding my bike today and the sun the sun is out.

Brandon:

We intended to talk about software.

Brandon:

I think we talked, I gave most of what we do.

Brandon:

Maybe I don’t want to go into its today but maybe next time I can take our listeners through and you too, we didn’t really focus on our marketing stack for the most part, I think we covered it just in summary, we use google enterprise for our email, we use google drive, we use Tremolo for our project management, that is non software software, we use gear, we use jura, we use slack to communicate, we have a little bot in there that does the, the check in every day and then we are on the apple platform.

Brandon:

I use good notes to take notes on my ipad which syncs with JIA and anyone else that I want to stick with and then um, yeah, we’ll leave the, I think that’s really it from an operation standpoint.

Danielle:

We can talk about website marketing and stuff next time if you want about what we do from there.

Brandon:

I think you probably do a little bit different than we do from the inbound leads and things like that.

Danielle:

Um, our crm, we use a plug in, you use java for your crm as well, don’t you?

Danielle:

And I will elaborate on that.

Danielle:

Um and how that system works because I actually had to learn a little bit about Lincoln you are all plug ins and stuff when we were setting all that up.

Danielle:

So it’ll be interesting to see your, your input on that when I tell you about my big, my big tech moment.

Danielle:

I figure we’ll talk and Crm is a big, big deal.

Danielle:

We, we just, we tried a lot of Crm um, and there are a lot out there, including salesforce, which takes a ton of customization and it’s clunky for a smaller business, you know, maybe if you’re, you get to 1000 plus people, that starts to make sense because you can hire a whole bunch of consultants to customize it and do all that.

Brandon:

But even then I found it clunky in big companies, but we, we did our own solution on our own servers for a bunch of reasons that I’ll talk about.

Brandon:

It was relatively easily to implement, um, relatively easy to integrate, which JIA actually did with the help of caden, R R C T O.

Brandon:

But um, let’s talk about that next time.

Danielle:

Perfect.

Danielle:

Sounds good.

Danielle:

I can’t wait.

Danielle:

All right, well, and what are you doing this weekend, staying at home?

Danielle:

Yeah, I’m staying home uh, tomorrow lunch with a couple of thanksgiving on sunday.

Danielle:

Thanksgiving.

Danielle:

Yeah, so wish me luck because we’ll be playing bocce ball with the fam we always play bocce ball at events, so hopefully I’ll kick some fun.

Danielle:

I’ll be having some wine.

Danielle:

So that’s what I’m doing and monday of golfing monday.

Danielle:

We’re going golfing, it was monday a holiday.

Danielle:

It is monday is considered a holiday.

Danielle:

And so our staff actually have monday off.

Danielle:

I I get a day off so I will be enjoying the day golfing good for you.

Brandon:

All right, well enjoy the weekend you as well, enjoy your bike ride and uh looking forward to next week’s conversation.

Brandon:

All right, we’ll see you then, Daniel.

Danielle:

Thanks everybody.

Danielle:

Thanks for being generous with your time and joining us for this episode of the Edge.

Danielle:

Before you go.

Danielle:

A quick question, Are you the type of person who wants to get 100% out of your time, talent and ideas?

Danielle:

If so you’ll love our monthly edge newsletter.

Danielle:

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Brandon:

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Danielle:

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Brandon:

You owe it to yourself to subscribe, check out the special offer with bonuses for you as a listener at Edge newsletter dot com.

Danielle:

Again, that’s e g e newsletter dot com.

Brandon:

Let me turn this off.

Danielle:

I wonder how that went on Youtube today, Daniel.

Brandon:

Should I check it out?

Brandon:

We can check it out later, but let me stop this.

Danielle:

People are gonna go, oh, they’re still talking

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