Podcasts about Trello

Te explico rápidamente la manera correcta de enviar newsletters a tu comunidad como dueña de negocio, emprendedora, o creadora de contenido.    Este video te ayudará a ver un behind the scenes de mis dos plataformas favoritas, CONVERTKIT y FLODESK: https://youtu.be/JR-86_5fFGM    ¿COMENTARIOS O PREGUNTAS?

This is definitely the song that never ends

Season 4 Episode 28 | Recorded December 4, 2022 Thank you to FreshBooks for making all of this possible, we love you. In today's episode, Scott sat down with Brian Streig, CPA for a lively conversation about his backstory and how he got into the accounting space. They talk about the super firms and navigated the peculiarities of Texas laws and discussed the differences between bookkeepers, accountants, and CPAs. They also discussed bleeding-edge tech, focusing on employees over clients, and how to "wow" clients with a great client experience. They also dove into the world of Tax Twitter and the shifting demographics of the industry. Lastly, Brian shared some valuable advice for firm owners and, to cap it all off, Scott even drops a rap so be sure not to miss this one. Brian gets into the accounting mess Brian's Backstory Condensing the Super Firms Austin during the great recession Bleeding edge tech Texas laws and peculiarities; Bookkeeper VS Accountant VS CPA All tax, all day, everyday Firm hard numbers BDO alliance The insurance niche Structure of the firm Vision and goals Focusing on employees rather than clients Twitter Tax Twitter: The decentralized water cooler Being popular on #TaxTwitter Big egos Being gay in the industry Shifting diversity and demographics in the industry Outsourcing Tax Software FreshBooks and change FreshBooks is so fresh, so easy FreshBooks is for small businesses Complexity in business nowadays Most important aspects of running a firm It's the people AI Tax Client experience in the firm Wow-ing the client Shoutout to the listeners and advice to firm owners FreshBooks rap All the Shoutouts: The Digital CPA conference, FreshBooks Partner Meetups, PwC, Chase, Indeed, BDO Alliance, Jody Padar, Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP I CGMA, CCH Axcess, UltraTax, Ghost Systems, Trello, Notion, Blake Oliver, CPA, Eakmark, Xero, QuickBooks, Twyla Verhelst, CPA, Sage, TurboTax --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/accountinghigh/message

Rob & Rob are back with more listener questions!  (0.35) Rowenna wants to know what Rob & Rob consider to be ‘quality' stock?  (5.48) Next up is long time listener Jay, who wants to know if Rob & Rob are still using Evernote and Trello, as they said years ago.  Enjoy the show?  Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts - it really helps others find us!  Sign up for our free weekly newsletter, Property Pulse  Send us your question by calling us on 013 808 00035 and leaving a message with your name and question (normal UK call rates apply) or click here to leave a recording via your computer instead.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you haven't automated your content process yet, you are literally throwing your valuable time out the window. By the end of reading this, I'm going to show you exactly how to automate your content, and calculate how much time/money it really saves you Let's use this simple workflow to illustrate how this works… Step 1.) You set up a Trello or project management tool to manage all of your content between you and your team Step 2.) The automation begins. Every time you drop a new “Raw video” file into your Gdrive or Dropbox, it automatically creates a new task inside of your project management tool (Via the tool itself or using something like Zapier) Step 3.) Once the video is completed it is moved into a “Completed and Archived Content” folder in your project management tool (Simply slide the card over it's easy). Once this this happens, it triggers another automation that places that completed content into an archive folder and organizes it by topic, created date, etc. Step 4.) Now at any point in time you can go back and easily search for content you've already created (The video and the copy). Not sure what to post about or have no new content ready? No worries, easily go through your archive list and snatch something up to post! Step 5.) Imagine by doing all of this you get back an additional hour per week. That's time with family, time with your team, time doing whatever you want to do! But imagine your hourly rate is 500/hr. That's $26,000 you just got back in your year but simply working SMARTER! Step 6.) Watch/listen to the full podcast/YouTube episode where Irit Levi breaks down ALL of this and much much more! She is a WIZARD at systems, processes and automation and she delivered! Check out the show below and go connect with her on LinkedIn now! https://www.linkedin.com/in/irit-levi/ Connect with us here too! LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexbsheridan Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/AlexBSheridan TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdHkmbFb/ Website: Impaxs.com

I asked ChatGPT to write the summary of this week's show. I just passed it the topics from our Trello board. It basically just rearranged all of the words that I had given it. This week, Adam and Daniel talk about Running, Tron, Trixie and Katya, Airplane Captain, and Margaritas. Email: contact@MixMinusPodcast.com Voice: 707-61-DEATH or http://Voicemail.MixMinusPodcast.com

The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast 313: 6 Years of Podcasting with Shannon Crow   Description: Shannon is celebrating six years of The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast! Thank you, dear listener, for your continued support of the podcast through the years. Shannon reflects on her journey in the past six years of podcasting and shares her gratitude for the team, sponsors, and people around her who have helped keep the podcast going.   Keeping a podcast going for six years is no small feat. Shannon also shares some of the tools she uses to keep organized and how she has managed to never run out of content ideas! Tune in to hear some of Shannon's lessons learned from podcasting.   Key Takeaways: [0:57] Shannon is celebrating six years of The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast! [2:18] Shannon thanks you, the listener, for your continued support of the podcast. [3:55] Shannon gives a shout out to the team that helps create the podcast each and every week. [7:02] Special thanks to the sponsors, OfferingTree and Pelvic Health Professionals. [8:37] How does it feel to be podcasting for six years? [9:31] Shannon has a spreadsheet where she keeps track of every single podcast episode. It shows every single topic that was covered and the guests who have come on the podcast. Shannon reflects on this. [11:08] One thing that keeps Shannon going on the tough days is thinking about how she helps yoga teachers. She keeps the podcast organized with Trello. [13:05] For Shannon, a huge part of being able to come up with content for the podcast has been focusing on her niche. [14:58] How can you apply to be a guest on the podcast? [16:47] Shannon has a quick message for you about OfferingTree. [19:03] Shannon is grateful to be in a place where it feels like the work she does is the right fit. [20:24] Shannon shares her gratitude for other people who have helped her keep the  podcast going by supporting her. [22:28] Shannon has learned some big lessons from her podcasting journey. [23:32] Shannon summarizes her six-year podcasting journey.   Links: The Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Team Trello Apply to be a podcast guest Shannon Crow on Instagram The Connected Yoga Teacher Facebook Group   Gratitude to our Sponsors, OfferingTree and Pelvic Health Professionals.   Quotes from this episode: "If you are looking at a big project, don't look at all the what ifs and where that might lead. Don't let that hold you back or scare you."   "Podcasting is not about having all the answers, it is about listening."   " I am incredibly grateful and a lot of that gratitude is to you because you are here listening and supporting the podcast and you're the reason for the podcast."   "If you have an idea, what is one small baby step that you could do towards that idea today?”

What's the hottest topic right now out in the online business space? If you said “ChatGPT” or another AI program, you are correct! It's what everyone is talking about. We are kicking off our Time Saving Tools series with 4 ethical ways you can use ChatGPT to make the most of your time. Curious? Keep listening!It's not very often that something dominates the conversation the way ChatGPT has the last few months. Since it came out late last year, everywhere you turn, people are talking about the AI-powered chatbot that generates human-like responses to written inputs. Opinions are strong ... people either love the idea or hate it.In this episode, I'm going to share four ways that I'm using ChatGPT.1. ChatGPT can be used as a research toolThe program is conversational ... you ask it questions or make a request, just like you would ask a person, and it responds.You do have to be careful about using ChatGPT for research, because it does not quote its sources unless you ask, and it will state things that are opinions with so much authority, that you think it is a fact, especially when you are dealing with cultural or political-type topics.2. ChatGPT can modify the tone of your writingIt's still your voice, but ChatGPT helps you change the tone to be more appropriate for your audience.3.ChatGPT can help you repurpose your contentInput your podcast episode script or blog post, and ChatGPT can create social media posts or an email promotion from the content you've already written. 4. ChatGPT helps you get off the blank pageIf the blank screen and blinking cursor are big barriers keeping you from making progress, ChatGPT can help you get started until your creative juices get flowing.Let me close with a few tips for using ChatGPT.  Remember that the chatbot is not really writing original content. It's aggregating existing content from the internet, and what it comes up with can be a fairly generic composite of the available information.It works better when you make small, incremental requests.The more broad and general the question, the more broad and general the answer.ACTION STEPGo to chat.openai.com and give it a try! Let me know what you think and how it works for you. This is just the beginning of our Time Saving Tools series. Over the next few episodes, I'll share some of my favorite ways that Canva, Trello, and Gmail streamline things for me so I can spend more of my time on the work I really love. Be sure to subscribe or follow the podcast wherever you listen so you don't miss a thing.RESOURCESThese are some of the resources that helped me think through the pros and cons of ChatGPT:AI Made Easy for Christian Business Owners –Free mini-class from Katie HornorChatGPT Has A Bias Problem –Business Insider articleHow to Use ChatGPT and Still Be A Good Person –New York Times article.++++++++++Are you tired from trying to share your God-inspired message while working your full time job? Do you wonder if it's worth it, or even possible, to build a ministry or business on the side?I have good news for you. It is possible. It is worth it. You can do it. Download the Honor System Guide, to help you honor all the work God has given you to do.

Episode #169 of Sweet Buzz - Scaling a Digital B2B Business, "Maximizing ROI Through AppSumo" Let's discuss the importance of utilizing the benefits of AppSumo for entrepreneurs. AppSumo is a service that provides lifetime deals for SaaS. Many entrepreneurs, including me, begin with manual processes, paying for services such as Dropbox and Google Drive for storage, etc. If you want people to schedule meetings with you - there is Calendly. Task management? We use Trello, and it's great! However, these tools can become expensive as the business grows. I'm encouraging you to take advantage of AppSumo, and its benefits to save money and manage your expenses. Can't get enough? Subscribe to "Sweet Buzz - Scaling a Digital B2B Business" to get a notification as I publish new episodes: https://podcast.bizzbeesolutions.com/ Do you want to get up close and personal with me? This is the place to be: https://danchodimkov.com/ Read all about the proven 6-step ZZ framework that will assure you get a steady flow of qualified leads in my Amazon best-selling book "Sweet Leads": https://danchodimkov.com/book/ A combination of courses, online community, and coaching sessions, that provide you with tools, and know-how on planning, executing, and optimizing your outreach campaigns? Don't overthink and click the link: http://hive.bizzbeesolutions.com/ Are you eager to subscribe to our newsletter for the latest trends and insights on B2B outreach, lead generation, prospecting, and other touchy content topics? Place your email address and hit SUBSCRIBE: https://www.bizzbeesolutions.com/beesletter/ Want to get in touch with me? LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dancodimkov/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dancho.dimkov.98 or on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bizzbee-solutions/mycompany/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BizzBeeSolutions Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bizzbeesolutions Website: https://www.bizzbeesolutions.com/

As you know, this podcast is entitled “Unstoppable Mindset” with the tag line “where Inclusion, Diversity and the unexpected meet”. This episodes represents for me one of the most unexpected sessions I have done. I first heard from Tanja Milojevic through LinkedIn. I did not know at the time she was a person who happened to be blind due to the same circumstances that befell me. I discovered this and so much more about Tanja when we finally met to discuss her coming on Unstoppable Mindset.   Tanja was born in Serbia as a premature birth. She was given too much Oxygen that effected her eyes and lead to her being blind. She permanently relocated with her family to the U.S. at the age of five. You get to hear her whole story including how she learned to function successfully in high school, college and beyond.   Our discussions in this episode include much about her life and successes. We also get to talk about one of my favorite subjects, audio drama.   Tanja's insights will help you learn not only much about blindness, but about life in general. I hope you enjoy Tanja's stories, observations, and thoughts.     About the Guest:   Tanja Milojevic Biography   I was born in Serbia as a premature baby. I had retinal detachment as a result of the incubators and was diagnosed with retinopathy of prematurity at the age of one. I then had several surgeries on both eyes to restore some vision which were partially successful. These surgeries took place in the United States.   I permanently came to live in the U.S. at the age of five when I was diagnosed with open and close angle glaucoma in both eyes. My medical visa helped me make a permanent home with my family near Boston where I began my mainstream public education.   Advocacy is important to me. I attended public school all my life and that required learning my rights and advocating on my own behalf along with my family. I wanted to learn braille at a young age even though I was able to limp along by struggling with print on my video magnifier. I was aware at that time that my vision would deteriorate over time and I'd lose all of it later in life; thus learning braille and mobility were early self-imposed goals in preparing myself for the gradual transition. I pushed the school system to take a dual learning approach and provide me print/braille materials. My supportive family helped me advocate from a young age and I got involved in my IEP meetings as a teen, which proved invaluable.   I advocated in high school and college to improve the experiences for other students who were blind or visually impaired coming into those institutions. My former TVI tells me these students' lives were much easier after I left because of I urged the school to buy braille translation software, the JAWS screen reader, scanning software, and an embosser. My use of JAWS from eighth grade onward gave me the technology skills I needed later in life and I believe future students should have that early opportunity as well.   I received my guide dog Wendell just before entering college. He was from the Seeing Eye and was a golden lab. Wendell and I were best friends and everyone I met fell in love with him, he was so human-like. My puppy was always a magnet for people and I had no trouble making friends and getting places safely, night or day, rain or shine.   Wendell accompanied me while I attended Simmons College, where I thrived and enjoyed the supportive community, clubs and events. My communications professor pushed me to pursue working at the college radio station where I improved my audio production and on-air skills. He saw audio potential in me--the perfectionist who always strived for improvement. The creativity was flowing and I began to make my own radio dramas. My podcast Lightning Bolt Theater of the Mind was born at that time and thrives today. My love of radio drama stemmed from an accidental discovery of the radio drama Pet Cemetery on tape back in high school.   Making the lives of people who are blind and visually impaired easier and better are objectives that continue to be part of my life. My internship at the Constituent Services Office under Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick was challenging and taught me a lot about issues families were facing across the state. I provided feedback on audio description quality during my WGBH Media Access Group internship and learned about ACB's Audio Description Project at that time. My Easter Seals internship provided me the opportunity to take part in the Thrive program, where I mentored a teenager with visual impairment and provided her with transition resources, confidence, and guidance.   I shadowed advocates at the Disabled Persons Protection Commission when I interned there and compassionately assisted vulnerable clients. Individuals with disabilities oftentimes face financial control and abuse in many cases and DPPC helps them take the steps they need to stay safe and resume their lives in a better situation. These experiences stuck with me as I advocated to take radio communications in college and learned the skills to become a professional voiceover talent. I graduated from Simmons College in 2012 with a double minor in Radio Communications/Special Education Moderate Disabilities and a BA in English Writing.   I moved on to UMASS Boston where I had the opportunity to work with the Carroll Center for the Blind and Perkins School for the Blind, to teach adults with visual impairments how to be more independent. I taught these students how to cook, clean, access technology, organize, launder clothes, read braille, learn about needed resources, and take part in leisure activities. The best part was seeing their confidence grow and the self-doubt lessen. I made their lives easier and better by increasing their self-image, confidence, advocacy skills, and independence. However, while attending graduate school, I had some accessibility challenges, but I pursued my Master's degree anyway. I struggled through the process by working with professors to complete my courses with high grades and finally graduated with a Master's in Vision Rehabilitation Therapy from UMASS Boston's Vision Studies Program.   My work at the Perkins Library has been outlined by Ted Reinstein on The Chronicle documentary TV program. It follows my braille production work at Perkins and my voiceover endeavors. I had seven years of experience providing braille and large print to a wide variety of organizations and individuals. Perkins offered many opportunities which I utilize to network: I try new devices when demonstrated, input ideas to MIT students for new technologies, and tested websites/software for various Perkins Solutions clients. My voice over freelance work allowed me to meet many friends and producers which organically lead me to the path of audio description narration work. I now work with X Tracks, International Digital Center and audio Eyes to name a few. Giving back to the blindness community by bringing more quality audio description to the ear is personally rewarding and I'm honored to be able to help advocate further in this field of access.   Further enriching my life experience, my current guide dog, a yellow lab named Nabu, and I were partnered in February, 2017. It didn't take long for our bond to form, and now she and I travel together everywhere. She's a beautiful and loving dog and it's no trouble meeting people with her participating in my adventures. We work closely every day and she rarely leaves my side.   That brings me to the present. In June of 2022, my partner and I founded GetBraille.com, a braille production company where we produce literary braille, large print, and audio materials to all who need them. This on-demand service will make it easier for schools, organizations, restaurants, and individuals to request quality braille at affordable prices. We always provide quotes and project consults at no cost. Our future goals include developing multi-sensory educational materials and assistive technologies for those with print disabilities that we wish had been available to us. Offering work to others who are blind and visually impaired is important to us as we grow; we look forward to the bright future a   How to connect with Tanja: Email me at tanja@getbraille.com Visit our Get Braille website at: https://getbraille.com/ Visit my voiceover website at https://www.tanjamvoice.com/ Find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/tanja.milojevic.37 Check out my linked in profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanja-milojevic-94104726/     About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.     Michael Hingson  01:20 Welcome once again, we're glad you're with us. And you have in case you're wondering, reached unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meat. I'm Mike Hinkson, your host and today we're interviewing Tanja Milojevic. And Tanja has a varied background. She is involved with a company called Get Braille. She's a voice actress. And she's going to tell us about the rest. I looked at her bio, and it's a nice long bio. So there's a lot of data there. So rather than putting all of that here in the podcast, Tanja gets to talk about it. How about that? Anyway, Tanja, welcome to unstoppable mindset. How are you?   Tanja Milojevic  02:01 I'm doing well, Michael, thank you so much. And it's Tanja. But Tanja a lot of people think that I think it's   Michael Hingson  02:09 well once again, like I should have asked because like with with  Milojevic. I, I just listened to what Josh said. And it said, Tanja, so Tanja.   Tanja Milojevic  02:20 Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm really excited. And of course, with your story being so inspiring, too. I, you know, I look forward to helping the community itself and in many different ways, including providing Braille access, and easier Braille access, more affordable, quality, all that fun stuff, and of course, contributing to the world of voiceover and AI voice cloning.   Michael Hingson  02:46 Well, let's start with kind of your history. Tell us about growing up and where you were born and all of that stuff.   Tanja Milojevic  02:54 So I was born in Serbia, I came here to the US at the age of five and a half, because I needed some various surgeries. Honestly, when I was born, I was a preemie premature baby and I had run off the prematurity. So we needed to perform surgery right away, to see if we could reattach the retinas. They had been detached due to the oxygen, the incubator. So my mother was able to gather enough money, fundraise and bring me here to the US at the age of one, we had the surgery that was very successful. And then we came back to the US periodically to get eyedrops medication and check in. By the age of five, these checkups were so frequent that we decided to settle in the US, it made a lot more sense to do that a lot more cost effective. So that's what we did. And I went to public school here, I have the fortune of getting all of my schooling here in the US, and then many other opportunities as life went along its journey. So I was a dual learner in school, I did large print Braille. And then of course, when screen reading technology was more easily obtainable. A lot of audio, JAWS, voiceover all that fun stuff. And I'd say my vision,   Michael Hingson  04:14 able to do much but give your age away. But when were you born what year   Tanja Milojevic  04:18 1989.   Michael Hingson  04:19 So by that time, by that time, ROP was pretty well known. So there was no choice but to put you in an incubator with pure oxygen or what?   Tanja Milojevic  04:34 Well, I mean, you're looking at not a third world country, but but definitely a country that was economically struggling with the war going on and such. And the care really wasn't equal access to everyone and it's sort of like, what you could get into, you know, what opportunities were available to you. And at the time, they had all these premature babies in incubators, that was just the way it was done. They didn't have enough They have to really monitor and I sort of question whether or not much of the staff really cared all that much about it. It's not like you could go to court and sue them and really get anywhere because they would lock you out of the courtroom. So with limited opportunities, you kind of took what you could get.   Michael Hingson  05:18 Yeah. Well, having been born in 1950, when ROP or at that time, rLf was not nearly as well known or certainly not accepted. Although it had been offered as a reasonable issue dealing with premature babies. It still wasn't totally accepted by the medical profession. And I've heard that there were people born around that time who like 30 and 40 years later sued and won. And I always felt, why would I want to do that? If the doctor didn't really know, or wasn't that well known? What are we gonna do by filing lawsuits other than destroying lives, which doesn't make any sense because my life was not destroyed, it just went a different way.   Tanja Milojevic  06:03 Right? I mean, that's a great way to look at it. And I see it as a blessing in disguise, because it was a great opportunity to bring my family over one at a time close family and get them jobs here. Well, not that I got them jobs, but they were able to have the opportunity to better themselves, their situations, and so on and have family here, which is a much more attractive alternative than being in a country that's economically struggling, war torn, etc. At the time, we got out of that conflict, just just in time, because it gotten worse from there, obviously. So having the opportunities to have public education here. All of the various services that were offered here, at the time was just unheard of. The School for the Blind that existed in Serbia was very 1800s, maybe 1950s style, institutional, like dark rooms dirty, just not a place you want to be. So yeah, it's a great, great opportunity for us. So I That's how I see it, instead of worrying about lawsuits and trying to get revenge or whatever.   Michael Hingson  07:14 Which makes perfect sense. Which makes perfect sense. Do you Do you have siblings?   Tanja Milojevic  07:19 I do I have an older sister. We're 17 years apart. So kind of the running joke is she's my mom. Sometimes, you know, state, we go to the certain know your mother can help you with this. Like, this is my older sister. But don't say that to her. She'll be offended.   Michael Hingson  07:36 Your big sister.   Tanja Milojevic  07:38 My big sister.   Michael Hingson  07:39 Yeah. Yeah, that works better. Yeah. So you say you did get some eyesight back from the operations? And yeah, how did that work for you in school?   Tanja Milojevic  07:52 I it was, in a way, it sort of got me into trouble. Not that I wasn't grateful for having the vision, it was just that my teachers were like, well, she can read large print, you know, and if we magnify them enough, and give her the video magnifier, or they call it a CCTV of CCTV, as it's called the video magnifier, but they gave me access to one of those like, well, she doesn't need Braille. Because first of all, we have to pay a whole ton more, we got to pay another person to come in here and work on Braille. And whenever she can give, just get by with large print. And it was a struggle, because after 45 minutes of trying to see the larger text, it hurt my you know, I get a headache, my eyes would start tearing, I might neck, shoulders all that you'd get uncomfortable sitting in in such a weird position for that long. So we had to fight with the school to get them the public school to get them to agree to get me Braille services, so that I learned braille and print and had both in my toolbox, if you will. But also, I would argue that the language barrier was just as much of a hindrance as maybe the lack of understanding of, hey, this is a dual learner. Because when I first started first grade, they put me in a school that was like more special ed versus some teaching someone who's blind, it was more like they had kids with various disabilities. And so the teaching style wasn't a good fit for me. I did learn English and like grade one Braille, which is for anyone that's listening that may not know, is uncontracted Braille. It's long form, you write everything out a letter at a time versus using contractions and the lead condensed bro, which saves a lot more space. So I knew that but it wasn't a great fit because I wasn't being challenged enough. And one of my teachers found that out first grade, and they pushed for me to get moved to a different public school, where it was more of a general ed system. So So I had a year where I was kind of like, stuck in first grade for two years. In a way that was good because I had a chance to learn more of the language and Braille at the same time. And then I was more prepared to move on with the curriculum. But in a way, it also sort of held me back and was a little bit awkward for me, because I was like, Wow, I'm older than these kids here in my class. So a couple of different challenges. But the way that I like to look at it is that the more skills you can gain from tough spots, you're put in, the better problem solving skills you might have or advocacy for yourself later in life, especially if you see that. It's just simply a matter of miscommunication. And as long as you explain things to to folks around you correctly, in a way that resonates with them, it's got to resonate with them, it can't just make sense. They've got to sort of personally understand what it is that you mean, and see the struggle, I guess, if you will, then you're better off doing it that way, then   Michael Hingson  11:01 what do you what do you mean? What do you mean by that? Can you kind of explain I I'm not sure I follow totally.   Tanja Milojevic  11:07 So a general education teacher is busy, they don't have the time to stay after school every day with you and work on extra things. If you can prove to them that giving you an assignment ahead of time, or giving you the notes on the board, or maybe even expressing to them what's confusing about you and setting a time that works for them, you're going out of your way to show that you're dedicated to their class, they personally need to show that their students are succeeding, or they're going to have to explain why it is that that they've got so many struggling students. They're responsible for many kids all at once, and you're just adding more stress. So the more solutions you can provide to them, the easier their life is, and their job is. And the faster they can get out the door because we all have lives and families and yeah. So proving to the school through anecdotal evidence that this is hiring someone else is just going to present their teachers with less obstacles is the way to go. At least for me, from my experience, well, showing effort showing evidence, and it worked. Yeah, yeah, eventually.   Michael Hingson  12:23 Well, how did the teachers react as you started to explain, I would assume that that helped.   Tanja Milojevic  12:29 It did help. I did run into some other snags where the teacher of the visually impaired I was working with at the time, had a lot of her own issues in her own life, day to day. So you for math and science, and so on, I was writing my showing my work writing a lot of the answers in Braille, leaving some space, so double spacing everything so that she could interline it with print, which means writing the print above the Braille line. So then the teacher could go ahead and read it, it was an extremely antiquated way to do it at the time, that was the option. Now, of course, we've got all kinds of technology and Google shirt, you know, Google Sheets, and whatever, all this other more efficient ways to do it. But the point is that it took her a couple of weeks to get these assignments back to my general education, math teacher, for example. And that slowed me down. Because I'd fall behind, I'd be maybe a chapter behind everybody else, I'd still have to pay attention in class, but they were well ahead of where I was. So you know, I was I was having a hard time keeping up. This was like for fifth grade. But it was just another exercise in workarounds and figuring out how else we can do this, I'd show my work and print on the CCTV instead of the Braille, I would find ways to print out material that I wrote off of my something called a Braille note or a Braille light at the time, which is just like a small computer, essentially, that has a Braille display, you can feel one line of brela at once. It's electronic, it stores files, you can change the file format, and I print out my stuff. So I came up with a couple of faster ways to do it.   Michael Hingson  14:19 And what it's what it's actually called as a refreshable Braille display because as new lines display, or new lines are called for the dots pop up representing those lines. So the display constantly refreshes for those who don't understand that. So it's a way of now producing Braille in a much more portable way. That one disadvantages is Tanya's describing it. You only get one line at a time because it's a very expensive process. The displays are not inexpensive to do so. Over time, hopefully we will find that someone will develop a really good full page braille display but that's a waste is off.   Tanja Milojevic  15:01 Yeah, it's still pricey technology. I really there get away from sins?   Michael Hingson  15:08 Yeah, we need to do something different than we do.   Tanja Milojevic  15:12 Definitely the pins get dirty Rogen, etc stuck, and it's very expensive to replace them. Yeah, that's part of the hindrance there.   Michael Hingson  15:21 But it is still a lot more portable than carrying a number of volumes of Braille books. I remember when I was in school, when I was in school I we ordered a catalog case from Sears the catalog case literally was a case where you would put catalogs and carry them around, if you were selling things, you could take catalogs to people, you could put a bunch of catalogs in this case, in my situation, we used to, to so that when I went school, I can carry some Braille books. And I got three or four volumes of Braille. So that carry Braille for a few subjects. But, of course, very bulky, very complicated, not easy to do, and certainly not refreshable.   Tanja Milojevic  16:06 Not at all, I did that for math, science history, especially a lot of the charts. The way that they did it was they'd have thermoform charts, and all the rest of the text was done in Braille. And so you had like not only the volume of the chapter, rail text, if you will, but you also have a separate volume you're carrying, that has all the reference figures associated with that chapter. So you're carrying two volumes, as opposed to where you could just have 213234 Sometimes,   Michael Hingson  16:38 and for those objects. And for those who don't know what thermoform is thermoform is a process where you create an original of something, whether it be drawings, or even documents on paper, and then you buy a machine called a thermoform machine, you put a blank piece of plastic in the machine, lying on top of the Braille sheet, the original Braille sheet, you activate it, and a vacuum pulls down the two sheets together the Braille with plastic on top of it, while it heats them. And the plastic then takes on the shape of the Braille document below it. So it's a way of relatively quickly producing a number of copies of a braille book or, as Tonya said, that, in her case, the diagrams and so on, of course, it's still not inexpensive. And thermoform isn't like using your fingers to read Braille pages, the plastic feels different in it, it's a little more awkward to use. But still, it was a fast way to get Braille comparatively speaking.   Tanja Milojevic  17:43 That's definitely true. The main issue with thermal warm is your fingers eventually go numb, because it's a glossy type paper. And if your hands are sweating, it can inhibit your ability to run your fingers across the page. So that makes your hands go numb faster. So sometimes putting some sort of powder on your hands can help. But well, the drawback to that is it dries your skin out. So there's always positives, and not so much to that process. But it is a more inexpensive way to produce tactile graphics.   Michael Hingson  18:21 See you sighted people think that you have problems in dark rooms trying to read stuff. You're not the only ones who have reading problems. We all have our challenges, don't we?   Tanja Milojevic  18:32 Oh, for sure. All sorts of creative challenges that we constantly iterate on to improve.   Michael Hingson  18:39 And we do iterate and we do improve, which is of course the real point of the whole process. So you went off and you went through school, when Where were you living in Boston or where?   Tanja Milojevic  18:53 So we were living in initially when came to the US. We lived in South Boston for a bit. Then we moved to Chelsea, we were there for about 10 years than ever. And then now I live in Peabody, but relatively same area   Michael Hingson  19:05 of the country spent. I spent three years in Winthrop. Oh, East Boston. So nice. Yeah, that's a nice area. Yeah. It's fun to be there. Well, then you you went on from school to college?   Tanja Milojevic  19:21 Yeah. I went to Sundance for my undergrad. And I studied communication, special ed and writing literature specifically. So that was a great experience. Their disabilities office was extremely helpful. I initially before applying to various colleges. I did a couple of interviews with their disability center. Couple of phone calls, I wanted to get an idea for myself of what their process was, and how willing they were to talk to me about it. So the fact that Simmons was not only transparent about their process, but also willing to answer any questions And when I'm not even a prospective student, yeah, told me a lot. So yeah, I did have a good experience.   Michael Hingson  20:06 So what did they do or say that caused you to like their office in their process, compared to other places that you observed?   Tanja Milojevic  20:16 Well, I mean, for one, it wasn't some email that was automated, or, like, a, I don't know, now, now, I guess you could joke and say, they're gonna send you to a half an hour recording that you have to watch. It wasn't anything like that, where they were just trying to automate everything. I spoke with the, one of the directors of the Disability Center there at the time. And I asked all kinds of questions like how far in advance, would you need these books, if, if that process falls through, if the professor changes the books or a new professor comes into the class, because these things happen all the time, you know, depending on what happens in life. They told me, Well, that's, that's okay. If the book changes, we can work with you, the publisher, or you can try to purchase the book, Online used. And then we can just scan a chapter at a time, if the crunch time is on. And you've already started the semester, get it to you within a week, as long as we have a syllabus, and we know what the timeline looks like for these chapters. And then we bring in the professor and make sure they understand there's a Letter of Accommodation, the professor has to sign that and understand what they're reading. And then if they cause trouble later, you can point to the letter and say, I'm not making this stuff up. There's evidence to support that I need this accommodation for this reason you signed off on it, can we work together on this, and it cuts that cumbersome, miscommunication down quite a bit when you do it that way. So the fact that there are several processes in place made me feel a lot better. I'm a kind of person that likes to have plan A through like E or F, just in case, as, as we know, with tech issues nowadays, we gotta have multiple options. One of the things, the confidence, there was really what drew me to, you know, they knew what they were doing, they were confidently able to answer my questions. They understood why I was asking them, they weren't getting annoyed that I had 50 questions. And that's really what sold me on it, if   Michael Hingson  22:25 you will. One of the things that I experienced when I was at UC Irvine, was our office basically said, we're here to help you and be the muscle and power if you get a lack of cooperation from professors and so on. But if you need material transcribed, or whatever this is, of course, long before offices became more organized, but you'll probably need to be the person to find the appropriate transcribers. Well, I worked with the California Department of Rehabilitation, we found transcribers and we found people to do that work, because the office didn't do it. But what the office basically said was, you need to learn to do this stuff anyway. Because we're not here and other offices and facilities aren't here, when you go out on the job,   Tanja Milojevic  23:21 right? That's a huge consideration is whether or not you're able to easily find people that can transcribe, especially if it's like a math class. So I'll tell you, in college, I avoided languages math, hardcore, because after high school, I had lost, you know, like, you don't just have that library available to just order from the Ames library, which is a common library that school systems use to borrow various textbooks for students. Once you hit college, you're kind of on your own in terms of finding out how you're going to accommodate these tougher classes. I math wasn't my favorite subject. So I tried to avoid that in high school, I took Spanish in German for languages. And because I had done that, there was a possibility for me to take multicultural electives in that place in place of that. And I took a test to opt out of like, the generally because my, my major didn't require math. So I opted out of that by taking a math test. And then I took an intro to computer science class. And I worked a lot with partners on certain tasks that were non visual network, or excuse me that were, it was usually visual, yes. Because there was just no other like you get into the class, you don't have a lot of time to figure out how you're going to make it happen. Transcription takes a while, as you know, so unless you have this well in advance, it's going to be a scramble, and you'll likely get the book later. into the semester. And then it's also a question of who's going to pay for it. It's quite a bit of money. Does the maths commission pay for it in this case? Does the school pay for it? And I didn't want the headache to cheat off to be frank about it. So I avoided it.   Michael Hingson  25:15 Well understand how did you find partners to help with different projects like that?   Tanja Milojevic  25:21 A lot of the time, that professor would just assign somebody in the class. But a couple of the classes I got on with a few of the students sitting near me, maybe all of us were pretty well introverted. So we didn't have a whole lot of people we talked to, and also Simmons is a school that has adult students, it's got, you've got, you know, people in the master's program taking maybe some other electives that are also available to undergrads. So that nice mix of culture really gives you more of a mature group to work with. So partnering with students wasn't too hard at all.   Michael Hingson  26:04 The operative part of that, though, is that you did the work to find a partner. And I know there are some times Yeah, well, what I'm getting at is like, there are colleges, where offices for disabled students says, oh, we'll find you those people. But then you have to work by whatever their rules are. And you learn how to do that yourself.   Tanja Milojevic  26:22 They did have that available. For example, if you needed a note taker, which in my case, I didn't. But if a student wanted a note taker, they could request that some some student say that sign up for work, study job, fill that position, that student would go to your class with you take the notes, send them to you, whatever it is that that they got to do. Sometimes there would be a reader that you could get access to same kind of deal, work study position, the student would work with you for maybe two to three hours a week, and then get paid for it. But the problem with that was you sort of had to coordinate your schedule with their schedule, if your class wasn't in a spot that in a space in their schedule that was open, they could work with you that day. So it was more of a hassle than it was worth. And I didn't need a reader at the time I scanned a lot of my stuff in and would work with a professor or ask if I wasn't clear on something. So yeah, that to   Michael Hingson  27:27 you, you did a lot of it. That is you did the work to to make it happen. In other words, you learned the skills that would help you later on once you got out of college.   Tanja Milojevic  27:36 I am grateful for that. Because when you get into the world of work, it's nothing but figuring out how you're going to make something happen and make your boss happy. So it's a good skill set to have.   Michael Hingson  27:47 So what did you do for Siemens?   Tanja Milojevic  27:50 So I went to UMass Boston, which was a program was mostly remote. We went in a couple of times for intro classes and law labs and things like that. So I initially started in the TDI program, which is future of the visually impaired. Then I switched to VR T vision rehab therapy, which is the differences that TBI works with students up to age 22. And sometimes they can work with adult learners to if they're working for permission or a blindness center. If you're a VRT, you're working mostly with adult students, teaching them daily, basically, daily living skills, where else skills a little bit, recreational, etc. So I switched to that program midway through. And so I was at UMass Boston for five years, and then got my Master's there. And that was, like I said, mostly remote. There are a couple of things that I liked about that. And a couple of drawbacks, for example, you didn't really get that same class feel when it was all remote as I'm sure everyone can attest with COVID than being on Zoom and does zoom PowerPoint by zoom right? PowerPoint deck, but by the boys. Yeah, I had a lot of experience in person asking the professor questions right there. And then with remote, you really couldn't do that as much. And I ran into some more accessibility standards, like test taking, getting the software not to timeout on me or jump my focus around the page. So I worked around those and we made everything work. But the main the main thing was now with labs coming in, getting a partner to work with was a little bit tougher at that point. Because that relationship that you build when you're in person in school wasn't a thing. You're posting online, you're replying to people's comments, and posts, but it's not really the same thing. It's, you're just kind of doing a lot of work on your own. So you feel isolated. And then when you're there in person in a lab, you're like well now I have to work with these people. Get enough information from them. And there will be no you. So it's a lot more communication that has to happen. And the only thing that I'll say that I wish was a little bit longer is some of these labs, we had a little bit more time to do them. Other than that, you know, did run into some accessibility issues, their disability center was a lot more slower and had a lot more red tape around it, their processes were a little unclear and ever changing. So I did have a struggle with that in a few cases. But hey, long story short, I graduated, so I'm happy   Michael Hingson  30:36 when you were growing up before you got into college, and so on, did you have a career goal in mind? What did you want to do when you grew up?   Tanja Milojevic  30:46 Ha, that's a that's a great question. I think a lot of the time, I wasn't really sure I was kind of bouncing from various things. I've always enjoyed acting ever since I was a kid, you know, I really admired good actors or who I considered good actors, performances. And like the genuine attea that they brought, maybe not all films are meant to be genuine. Like, you can think of anime or cartoon they're over the top. But when something is very believable that you get in touch with a character, you feel like they're real. That's the kind of thing I wanted to emulate, and also just living vicariously through them. So when I discovered that voice, acting was a thing. In high school, I was like, Oh, this is exactly what I want to do. I'd always been interested in it since I was kid like, enjoyed making home movies recording, I used to have a tape recorder when I was a kid, bring it around everywhere and annoy the crap out of everybody in my family. Ask them questions, record little stories, it was just creative, fun. But I always thought if I could have this creative vision or creativity be part of my job, I'd be very happy, never enjoyed the idea or prospect of being a drone. Not that everyone working in an office is a drone. But I just found the idea of sitting behind a desk doing the same thing over and over and over again. Absolutely. You know, no freedom to make any decision about anything was was completely suffocating to me the idea of that, I always wanted something where I could move around, work with different people enjoy it, really challenge myself and work in a team to make something awesome. Like art. That's not really a career, per se, it's a hobby that turned into a side gig, that now with working with resemble AI, it's a embedded more so into my day to day job, where I'm recording different voices for them, and so on. It started as like one of those, this would be cool if I could do this. And then this is fun. I'm going to do this as much as I can and kind of more and more experienced networking. And then otherwise. Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just gonna say otherwise, I really wanted to give back to the community because I had always been a consumer of audio description and Braille services and these, like the mask mission and my various Braille teachers and mobility instructors, who made lessons a lot of fun in high school, they didn't just make it boring. Gold went across the same street every single week, there was like, No, we're gonna go to the store. And we're gonna learn how to solicit persistence and whatever we're going to forget about these cardinal directions for which I got sick of. But the point is, I enjoyed so much, I couldn't be the person I am today without the services that I've taken advantage of my whole life. So just the idea of giving back, and helping other people making their day a little bit brighter, and helping them understand that we're all gonna have bad days, that's never gonna go away. The grief, if you've lost your sight is never gonna go away. Grief never does. But you know that it's going to be better. If you're feeling bad one day, you know, it can't be like that forever. Something will surprise you. And if you put it out there enough, things are gonna are gonna improve universe always seems to put out with what you expect eventually. Not in the way you expect. But it will happen some somewhere somehow. And those two things I feel like now I'm finally at the point where I've gotten both of them to be a reality.   Michael Hingson  34:33 So the big question of the podcast is, you made all those recordings when you were growing up? Did you keep them?   Tanja Milojevic  34:42 Some of them? I have some of the tapes. It's some of them are so terrible and overdramatic, but it's amusing. It's like just you can tell I was just having fun. And then the recordings through the years as I got better with voice acting kind of took part in different shows. I did save all of those just because you you would be surprised. Maybe not. Maybe you wouldn't be surprised. But a lot of producers will lose things. They'll put something on the backburner, like a project. And then three years later, oh my god, I'm trying to work on this project. I have a lot more time now life got a little less busy. I don't have the recordings anymore. My computer harddrive died. Do you have have not? You know, that happens a lot. And then data, it's easy to just keep a bunch of it. A bunch of data.   Michael Hingson  35:30 As I recall, if I remember the story, right? The movie Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O'Toole Academy Award winner, but somewhere along the line, the master was lost. And somehow it was recovered. But even an Academy Award film, things things happen.   Tanja Milojevic  35:53 Exactly. They do. So that's why I'm backup hard drives. I've like two or three of them. back everything up. I usually drama, so I collect those.   Michael Hingson  36:03 Yeah. What's your favorite?   Tanja Milojevic  36:07 Oh, that's top like, I don't know, I don't even know.   Michael Hingson  36:10 Tell me some of the audio dramas you like?   Tanja Milojevic  36:14 So is there a genre you're thinking? Do you are you thinking modern or not? So that's a really hard question to answer. I decided to go based on categories. But there is a version of lock and key that was done on location and main locking key. Of course, anyone listening will? Well, if you're a Netflix person, you'll know that it's an original series on Netflix. But there are books that were written by I believe it's Stephen King's son, and Stephen King. And I'm a huge Stephen King fan. So they wrote this, I think it's a series might be three partners, quote, honestly don't quote me on that. But there are books, it was written as a radio drama and adapted by someone called Fred Fred Greenhalgh from Maine and they recorded on location that a couple of days they did this, it's a six part audio drama, it's available on Audible. It is so good.   Michael Hingson  37:09 The audible copy. And it is, I didn't even know what it was going to be like, when I got it. But it is it is so well done.   Tanja Milojevic  37:21 It's way better than the Netflix series.   Michael Hingson  37:25 I collect old radio shows, I collect old radio shows as a hobby, and I've been doing that for a long time. And you you see all sorts anything from good to bad. But that is a lot of that has spoiled me for some of the acting that I've seen in more modern dramas, because the same level of emotion, isn't there people, a lot of people today don't know really, how to act and produce an audio drama that conveys I think what the author originally intended in the book or the way it was done with a radio. We just sometimes we don't see the same quality, but I remember locking key and it does.   Tanja Milojevic  38:09 That is true, that it's not always the same quality. I think that we're trying, we're really have a couple of different avenues where we're trying to fix that, like there is something called the audio verse awards. They happen every year. There are different, obviously, iterations of this out there. But the audio verse awards really strives not to make it a popularity contest. Yeah, the crowd voting system, people go in, they listened to various things, you got awards for sound design, and acting and writing and music production. Everybody gets recognized, which is important. You can't just recognize the writer or the actor, because that's, that's just a tiny piece of the pie. So it's a good place, I'll say if you don't know where to start, when it comes to listening to good audio drama, or at least vetted audio drama. It gives you a lot of choices. And you can find these things and then you've got people ranking, the quality of things on blog posts and all kinds of places they're   Michael Hingson  39:15 well Gunsmoke, the Gunsmoke, the Western, they call it sometimes the first adult Western in radio that was on from well, all of the 1950s constantly won awards for sound patterns, sound effects, and if you listen to it and compare it even to other old radio programs, there is so much more sound put into it. It's they did an incredible job of really setting the scene and creating the atmosphere with with the sound patterns with the sound effects. So it wasn't just the acting, which was so good.   Tanja Milojevic  39:55 I know. I mean, they got some talented foley artists there. Yeah, and yeah, and I mean, another one with sound obviously that if we're thinking of classic, maybe not as classic as Gunsmoke. But the Star Wars, NPR. I was   Michael Hingson  40:13 thinking of of that. Yeah. The Star Wars program is pretty well done in the acting is good. Hamill did a did a great job.   Tanja Milojevic  40:23 That isn't absolute. I mean, there are other Star Wars, radio dramas in that world that I can think of, but none of them compare to that. NPR version. There's   Michael Hingson  40:36 there's another program that NPR did. That was on for three years called Alien Worlds, which was well done.   Tanja Milojevic  40:42 Oh, you think I heard that one? Yeah. Well, if you I mean, the BBC does some great stuff to do. Oh, they   40:49 do a lot of good stuff.   Tanja Milojevic  40:49 Yeah. Yes. I think my biggest frustration is that there isn't one central directory where you can find all of this stuff and keep up to date with it. You have to go on this website, and this website and Miss directory. And there's no central data, like your collection system, where it's like, oh, I want to learn about the history of audio drama, and I want to know what's available now. And in the past, like archive.org, Doc, excuse me, archive.org is extremely helpful, because you can just search keywords and find a bunch of stuff that was curated, downloaded, cleaned, like nightfall. Amazing, amazing series from 1979 to like, 1981 or 1982. I think they only had 104 episodes, but they're really Canadian horror series. Now, really, really good stuff anthology. So a lot of it was ahead of its time.   Michael Hingson  41:53 Yeah, as we've seen so many times, well, Gene Roddenberry was way ahead of his time as well. Needless to say, yeah, so you've done a fair amount of voice acting, I gather. A bit have we have we heard   Tanja Milojevic  42:10 you might have. I mean, like, for example, some of the longer run stuff going on, it's edict zero. Some, some may be familiar with that. It's a science fiction cyberpunk series. So I'm just like Fraser meets X Files, it's really good. mind bending stuff. You know, our world is a simulation, kind of a lot of fun. That's been running, I don't know now nine years, what maybe more, it's crazy. There's what's the frequency, which is kind of a cool, fantasy, horror, contemporary show. That is one season, I think we're gonna be working on season two. So far, there is I do want to mention the 11th hour project is a great place. If you're new to audio drama, you want to dip your feet in, maybe you want to try your hand at producing or writing or something, you've never done it before. It's an extremely inclusive space. It's 11th hour audio.com. And if you visit that, you'll notice there are obviously shows that have been created. But what it is, is it's a challenge in the month of October to create audio dramas from start to finish and collaborate with people you've never collaborated with before. In this project, this team effort, and it's a race to the deadline. It comes out on world audio drama day, which is the 31st of October, in recognition of world the world's originally 1938. And it's a lot of fun. I've been involved a couple of years there. It's a wonderful community. They're extremely welcoming. The moderators are great. And they're always available to answer any questions, so I totally recommend checking it out. And then other stuff that's horizon, the white vault, there's a group out there called fool and scholar productions. And while we're on the topic of sound design, Travis van Graf, who is the one of the integral members or founders of that group, won several awards through the audio verse awards. Specifically I can think of for sound design on vast horizon and the white vault and some of his other shows, like Tales from the tower. So these are all vast horizon is a horror slash sci fi show that's about this agronomist who wakes up on a spaceship, the rest of the crew is just gone. They're not dead. There's no bodies, no signs of struggle or anything like that. They're gone. But the ship is breaking apart. So she's got to figure out a way to get to some sort of station and the only entity she can interact with is the artificial intelligence on the ship. So I play the artificial intelligence which for me was a huge like dream come true, I guess, if you will, because I've always been fascinated with it. Artificial assistants and all that. And using the screen reader. I mean, I know a lot of my friends who are visually impaired love to imitate screen readers just because it's funny. So and so I finally got to do it and get like, a dig out of it. That was awesome. And then again, vast horizon vast horizons, okay? Yes, it's it's singular, vast horizon horizon, singular, cracked, you got it. And then the white vault is a survival horror show. First Person accounts basically compiled, but not what you would imagine from seeing a lot of these similar kind of tropes, if you will, this is a truly international task. And it takes place all over the world. And they get actually authentic actors from various countries. It's not like, oh, and I want you to do a British RP accent and whatever, it's, it's actually people from there. And there are languages also being represented other languages like Mandarin, and you know, Icelandic and so on. And they, they do it in such a tasteful way where the language starts, then it fades down, and you have the voice actor speaking in English. They got translators, I mean, they really put a lot of thought into this. I highly recommend it. And you can binge all five seasons now. Vast horizon, you can also binge all the seasons. So if you need some listening materially fun road trip stuff. Those are a couple of the project. I mean, there's others, but you know, there's Take, take me, take me a while to go through those.   Michael Hingson  46:37 And with all the languages, I assume nobody though, has done clean Chinese yet?   Tanja Milojevic  46:42 Not yet. But they just Serbian.   Michael Hingson  46:45 Oh, yeah, that's that's not yet but that's okay.   Tanja Milojevic  46:49 Well, willing, that was actually fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. It's just really some insight on that. Yeah. If you're interested in, in learning about how the clang on food scene is, is done. In the next generation, I think there was a recent episode where they had this whole banquet such was like this Yeah. entity to look like an octopus, basically, creepy, alien looking. There's an episode of gastropod, where they go into, it's called gastropod, the podcast, and they talk about food in the context of science fiction and fantasy, and how writers work is, has been brought to life, either in books or in movies. And they talk about Star Trek, they actually have the lady who designed the set and the food, like that is literally her job. She designed this food to look perfect on camera. And also so that the actors aren't like, chewing too much, or whatever. They're, it's fascinating. And that's just a talk on cast. It's not audio drama.   Michael Hingson  47:53 So what's been the biggest challenge for you in your career so far on the job and all that?   Tanja Milojevic  48:00 The biggest challenge, I'd say is the ever changing technology, software, tech stacks, soft phones, CRMs, you name it, like, you know, you learn one thing, or maybe a company starts using a new tool just because it works for them. And it's a good presents good workflow. But not all the tools are usable with screen reading technology, like Jaws like NVDA voiceover. And there's this constant need to adapt and learn how to come up with workarounds. And explain to your boss, I understand why you want to use this. But I'm unable to access it because of these inaccessible barriers that I'm running across. How can we work together to make it work. And sometimes it's, well, let's collaborate on Google Sheets. And then I'll post the results up here on this tool that we're using, for instance, resemble uses something called notion. It's a fairly early tool and its development. It's mainly designed for writing and it's think of Trello. It's like cards that you move around. And those denote tasks completed or in process, you're able to put in notes, it is not accessible at all. So a lot of these workarounds is just, you gotta have a lot of communication, make sure that people are on the same page. And so we also use Slack. And then my solution is Google Suite. Because it bridges that gap a little bit. We can always post a Google link in one of those notion cards, and people can access the same info. How do you like say that? It's the best solution that I've run across so far in terms of keeping track of threads and channels, but there's definitely some things that are a little cumbersome with it. For example, sharing files when you're on the desktop version, if you're trying to download files files that folks have sent you. Getting into that, to see the file, sometimes when you tab, basically or so. So imagine that you're on the name of your colleague, and they've shared two files with you, you're going to hit tab to get into the list of files. Sometimes all it does is say bold italics. So then you have to shift tab into the field, pressure up arrow, once, it'll start reading a bunch of stuff, you ignore that you tab once you get to the files, each time you open the modal dialog to download each file. And then you hit the Close button. Once it's downloaded, you're brought right back into the message field, and your focus is no longer on the file list. So then you have to go back up repeat, tab, pass the first file you've downloaded, rinse and repeat the entire process, and it just slows you down. So I find them some way slack is very clunky. But it is the fastest solution when compared to others.   Michael Hingson  50:56 It's really good at being able to have a lot of channels and so on my biggest challenge with Slack is that if you have to monitor a variety of channels, it's not at all trivial. To go from channel to channel quickly. You just spent a lot of time looking through channels to find nuggets or information. And that's an awkward thing. It's it is not it is it is more linear from a voice standpoint, then is is really helpful.   Tanja Milojevic  51:28 Yeah, I mean, even reacting like and find it much easier to react to posts on the phone than on the desktop app. Yeah. And switch between workspaces on the phone. My other thing to bring up is notifications. I feel like Slack doesn't always notify you, right? Even if you're mentioned, sometimes it's easy to miss. So like you said, you have to sit there and hunt through all the channels, make sure that someone isn't trying to get your attention. Sometimes they just want to be like, right? I just want to be like, Can you email or text me or call me? I will get all of those things. Yes, don't bury somewhere, but it's so frustrating sometimes. But it's better than discord in terms of monitoring channels, I've noticed discords accessible, but it's not very usable in a lot of ways.   Michael Hingson  52:17 So you use a guide dog, I understand I do what caused you to decide to use a guide dog as opposed to just using a cane.   Tanja Milojevic  52:26 I've always loved animals. So as a kid, we lived on a farm and we had chickens, turkeys, we had a pig, and so on. So a lot of my job was to collect the eggs and you know, take care of them, whatever, feed them. So I grew up with animals. And then you know, birds as pets and so on. I really wanted to have my own, like dog. And my mom was just like, well, I don't know, I mean, it's a lot of work a lot of responsibility. I don't want the dog in the house. She wasn't a fan of the hair, the shedding and the responsibilities and the costs. So when I found out in high school that I could get a guide dog, you know, I could apply get one. And then I talked to some other folks who already had dogs, like my friend, teachers had dogs, I got to see them every day. And I got to see them working. And they were just so good and very caring. And there's nothing like a special bond between a guide dog and their handler, where the dog trusts you implicitly. And they love you unconditionally. So it's just such a such a it was such an attractive like, Oh, I'm gonna have my own best friend with me in college. And also the fact that you could travel around a lot easier the dog, follow people in front of you get you through a store a lot quicker find doors, elevators, stairs, street crossings. As long as you knew the route, you were good to go. So I loved that whole thing. And I decided to apply because I wanted to have a furry friend I could bring with me to college. College is intimidating when you're in high school because you're like, Well how am I gonna make friends? I'd always had trouble sort of connecting with peers my age. I always found it easier to make friends with folks were older than me. Then people my age were kids, you know kids are are fine too. But it was just that whole awkward of like, if you're the only person with a visual impairment in your school people are just like, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go do my own thing. So when I got a dog, you know, started college. It was a game changer in terms of helping me not be so so sad and like down just like being far away from my family. And being in this they gave me in freshman year they gave me this room that was like for one person and it was like a cell I kid you not. It was tiny. It was a corner of the building. I'd had a tiny closet and just enough room for you to spin around with your arms out That's about it. So I was very sad. I was just like, Wow, I feel like I'm in a prison cell. And I can't, like, see family or anybody, I feel so isolated here. So having the dog was huge for my mental health and not getting depressed, too bad, you know? So I got the dog for a number of reasons. I mean, socialization, huge. People would talk to me want to pet the dog, like they cared about the dog, not me. But it didn't matter. It's still, I still did wanted to do and I could get them to help me. In certain situations, like in the cafeteria, if I needed help, or whatever, finding a certain classroom, I could get peers to help because, like, if you help me find this classroom, you can pat him. Okay. So it worked out really well. Yeah, I just loved having the companionship,   Michael Hingson  55:53 I got my first guide dog going into high school, and that was even learned to use a cane but I was very knowledgeable about travel of dog has made a lot of a difference in what I do. And a dog's Well, a dog dogs in general have taught me a lot about teamwork, I love to say that I've learned more about trust and teamwork, from working with a guide dogs that I've learned from all the business and management experts in the world, because dogs do love unconditionally, but they don't trust unconditionally. And what you said was true, they trust implicitly, but only if you earn their trust. And they likewise have to earn your trust. And you have to learn to trust them, it's a two way street. But when both members of the team trust each other, it's a sight to behold. And it makes all the difference. And, and there's something to be said for the fact that it's good to have somebody to keep company with, you know,   Tanja Milojevic  56:55 Oh, definitely. I mean, both of my dogs, I feel so fortunate I've had wonderful was my first dog. The hardest thing though, for me is like I get so attached to them. And I, if they're if they're like sick, or they're getting older, I just worry about it and worry about it. And if there's something that I wish, it's that their lives were longer, yeah, and also, I've just had dogs with health issues. My first dog had inflammatory bowel disease, cancer and kidney disease at the end. And it was traumatizing, like we had to unfortunately, you know, put them to sleep and stuff. And after that, it just affected, it still affects me, like I mentioned earlier, grief doesn't go away at all, it's just how you deal with it. And you have to understand they you need to accept it, it's part of your life. And you're always going to remember them. And you got to you got to give them the respect of remembering them fondly and appreciating them for what they gave you. Right there. They gave their soul their spirit for you, you know,   Michael Hingson  57:58 you could dwell on the disease, or you can draw up dwell on the bad things, or you can dwell on the positive things and all the things that we learned together, and one of the things that I've learned through now, eight guide dogs is Wow, when when I got my first one in 1964, so it's been a while. But you know, when when they grow old, or they become ill, and you have to get our dog, it doesn't mean that you think any less of the dog who can't be your partner anymore, but you form a new teaming relationship. And your relationship may change if you keep the old the other dog which we generally have done. But still, the relationship is there. And what you really get to do is to get two dogs used to each other so that they interact and that's a lot of fun. Yeah, and I've had I've had two dogs ganging up on me. So which dog do you think I am? I want to go to work today. Oh, they're so easy. They're sneaky. Oh, that is so sweet. LaTonya this has been a lot of fun. Absolutely. I really appreciate all your time and insights. If people want to learn more about you and voice acting and so on, how would they do that?   Tanja Milojevic  59:18 You can check out my website that has samples of my work at WWW dot Tanja T A N J A. M as in Mary voice.com. That's TanjaMvoice.com. You can email me at Tanja t a

I usually get approached by people who need help with one of three tools: Asana, Pipedrive or Zapier. And because I offer support for a project management tool like Asana, I often get asked if I can help with similar apps like ClickUp or Trello. People tell me all the time that I could grow my business if I offered more services. But I find it very beneficial to offer fewer services and to offer the best support we can for that particular tool.Show notes (please leave me a comment with your questions and feedback) » https://paulminors.com/273If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.Intro/Outro Music: "Synthia" by Scott & Brendo 

You can subscribe and listen to every episode of the "Unleash the Awesome" podcast at https://gambrill.com/podcast . 0:45 "Embracing A.I. Now in Your Life and Business" - Episode 116 of the "Unleash the Awesome" podcast with Dave Gambrill.https://gambrill.simplecast.com/episodes/embracing-ai-now-in-your-life-and-business . 1:05 "Work Harder on Yourself than You Do Your Job" - Episode 110 of "Unleash the Awesome".https://gambrill.simplecast.com/episodes/work-harder-on-yourself-than-you-do-your-job . 3:28 Eisenhower Method of Priority Management - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management . 4:18 Focus on continually enhancing these skills: Communication, Selling/Influence, Project Management/Productivity, Domain Expertise, and Trends. 6:15 BLUF = Bottom Line Up Front - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication) . 7:30 "To Sell is Human" - Dan Pinkhttps://amzn.to/3YvjQW2 . 8:07 "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" - Dr. Robert Cialdinihttps://amzn.to/3InKp9W . 8:15 "Dr. Robert Cialdini Shares Powerful New Insights Regarding Influence and Persuasion" - Episode 66 of the "Unleash the Awesome" podcast with Dave Gambrillhttps://gambrill.simplecast.com/episodes/dr-robert-cialdini-shares-powerful-new-insights-regarding-influence-and-persuasion . 9:06 "Increase Your Productivity Through the Power of Trello and Kanban" - Episode 33 of "Unleash the Awesome".https://gambrill.simplecast.com/episodes/increase-your-productivity-through-the-power-of-trello-and-kanban . 11:45 "21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" - John C. Maxwell https://amzn.to/3Inoqjp . 12:02 "Extreme Ownership - How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win" - Jocko Willink, Leif Babin, et al.https://amzn.to/3IoGcTB . . . . . . . . .  Want some help deciding what tech tools to use in your business? Check out Tech Tools Tuesday.https://gambrill.com/ttt . Come join the conversation in our communities... Digital Marketing Mentorship with Dave Gambrill Facebook Grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/dmmdavegambrill . Digital Marketing Mentorship with Dave Gambrill Telegram Channelhttps://gambrill.com/telegramdmm . And let me know what you thought of this episode and what you'd like me to cover in future episodes over on Instagram.https://www.instagram.com/gambrill/ .  #unleashawesome #growthmindset #mindset #toolset #entrepreneur #success #skillset #digitalmarketing #coaching  #trainer #creatoreconomy #lifelonglearning #systems #gambrill #davegambrill #ai #communication #sales #influence #persuasion #cialdini #robertcialdini #johnmaxwell #leadership #jockowillink #danpink #trello #productivity #kanban #21laws #maxwellleadership    CONSUMER NOTICE: You should assume that I have an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services mentioned in this broadcast and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. You should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or offline.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Decision Transformer Interpretability, published by Joseph Bloom on February 6, 2023 on The AI Alignment Forum. TLDR: We analyse how a small Decision Transformer learns to simulate agents on a grid world task, providing evidence that it is possible to do circuit analysis on small models which simulate goal-directedness. We think Decision Transformers are worth exploring further and may provide opportunities to explore many alignment-relevant deep learning phenomena in game-like contexts. Link to the GitHub Repository. Link to the Analysis App. I highly recommend using the app if you have experience with mechanistic interpretability. All of the mechanistic analysis should be reproducible via the app. Key Claims A 1-Layer Decision Transformer learns several contextual behaviours which are activated by a combination of Reward-to-Go/Observation combinations on a simple discrete task. Some of these behaviours appear localisable to specific components and can be explained with simple attribution and the transformer circuits framework. The specific algorithm implemented is strongly affected by the lack of a one-hot-encoding scheme (initially left out for simplicity of analysis) of the state/observations, which introduces inductive biases that hamper the model. If you are short on time, I recommend reading: Dynamic Obstacles Environment Black Box Model Characterisation Explaining Obstacle Avoidance at positive RTG using QK and OV circuits Alignment Relevance Future Directions I would welcome assistance with: Engineering tasks like app development, improving the model, training loop, wandb dashboard etc. and people who can help me make nice diagrams and write up the relevant maths/theory in the app). Research tasks. Think more about how to exactly construct/interpret circuit analysis in the context of decision transformers. Translate ideas from LLMs/algorithmic tasks. Communication tasks: Making nicer diagrams/explanations. I have a Trello board with a huge number of tasks ranging from small stuff to massive stuff. I'm also happy to collaborate on related projects. Introduction For my ARENA Capstone project, I (Joseph) started working on decision transformer interpretability at the suggestion of Paul Colognese. Decision transformers can solve reinforcement learning tasks when conditioned on generating high rewards via the specified “Reward-to-Go” (RTG). However, they can also generate agents of varying quality based on the RTG, making them simultaneously simulators, small transformers and RL agents. As such, it seems possible that identifying and understanding circuits in decision transformers would not only be interesting as an extension of current mechanistic interpretability research but possibly lead to alignment-relevant insights. Previous Work The most important background for this post is: The Decision Transformers paper showed how RL tasks can be solved with transformer sequence modelling. Figure 1 from their paper describes the critical components of a Decision Transformer. A Mathematical Framework for Transformer Circuits that describes how to think about transformers in the context of mechanistic interpretability. Important ideas include the ability to decompose the residual stream into the output of attention heads and MLPs, the QK circuits (decides if to write information to the residual stream), and OV circuits (decides what to write to the residual stream). The Understanding RL Vision, which analyses how an RL agent with a large CNN component responds to input features, attributing them as good or bad news in the value function and proposes the Diversity hypothesis - “Interpretable features tend to arise (at a given level of abstraction) if and only if the training distribution is diverse enough (at that level of abstraction).” Methods Environment - RL Environm...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Decision Transformer Interpretability, published by Joseph Bloom on February 6, 2023 on LessWrong. TLDR: We analyse how a small Decision Transformer learns to simulate agents on a grid world task, providing evidence that it is possible to do circuit analysis on small models which simulate goal-directedness. We think Decision Transformers are worth exploring further and may provide opportunities to explore many alignment-relevant deep learning phenomena in game-like contexts. Link to the GitHub Repository. Link to the Analysis App. I highly recommend using the app if you have experience with mechanistic interpretability. All of the mechanistic analysis should be reproducible via the app. Key Claims A 1-Layer Decision Transformer learns several contextual behaviours which are activated by a combination of Reward-to-Go/Observation combinations on a simple discrete task. Some of these behaviours appear localisable to specific components and can be explained with simple attribution and the transformer circuits framework. The specific algorithm implemented is strongly affected by the lack of a one-hot-encoding scheme (initially left out for simplicity of analysis) of the state/observations, which introduces inductive biases that hamper the model. If you are short on time, I recommend reading: Dynamic Obstacles Environment Black Box Model Characterisation Explaining Obstacle Avoidance at positive RTG using QK and OV circuits Alignment Relevance Future Directions I would welcome assistance with: Engineering tasks like app development, improving the model, training loop, wandb dashboard etc. and people who can help me make nice diagrams and write up the relevant maths/theory in the app). Research tasks. Think more about how to exactly construct/interpret circuit analysis in the context of decision transformers. Translate ideas from LLMs/algorithmic tasks. Communication tasks: Making nicer diagrams/explanations. I have a Trello board with a huge number of tasks ranging from small stuff to massive stuff. I'm also happy to collaborate on related projects. Introduction For my ARENA Capstone project, I (Joseph) started working on decision transformer interpretability at the suggestion of Paul Colognese. Decision transformers can solve reinforcement learning tasks when conditioned on generating high rewards via the specified “Reward-to-Go” (RTG). However, they can also generate agents of varying quality based on the RTG, making them simultaneously simulators, small transformers and RL agents. As such, it seems possible that identifying and understanding circuits in decision transformers would not only be interesting as an extension of current mechanistic interpretability research but possibly lead to alignment-relevant insights. Previous Work The most important background for this post is: The Decision Transformers paper showed how RL tasks can be solved with transformer sequence modelling. Figure 1 from their paper describes the critical components of a Decision Transformer. A Mathematical Framework for Transformer Circuits that describes how to think about transformers in the context of mechanistic interpretability. Important ideas include the ability to decompose the residual stream into the output of attention heads and MLPs, the QK circuits (decides if to write information to the residual stream), and OV circuits (decides what to write to the residual stream). The Understanding RL Vision, which analyses how an RL agent with a large CNN component responds to input features, attributing them as good or bad news in the value function and proposes the Diversity hypothesis - “Interpretable features tend to arise (at a given level of abstraction) if and only if the training distribution is diverse enough (at that level of abstraction).” Methods Environment - RL Environments. GridWor...

In todays episode, I show you the step by step video strategy that my clients and I use to turn video views and engagement into paid customers! I call it the V4 video content strategy and here is the breakdown! V: Vision and Alignment 1.) Customer Insights/Ideation 2.) Content Channels and Mediums 3.) Creation and Distribution Process/Team 4.) Collect Data and Optimize Performance Vision/Alignment: This is where it all begins. If you are not clear here, good luck trying to turn your content into customers/revenue Here's a quick test to see if you really have this….. Ask yourself this question: WHO do you want to become in your industry? (What do you want to be known for?) Example for us: We want to be the most trusted and innovative video content brand in our industry. Our unique point of view is that we believe companies can educate and build trust, WHILE they entertain (Edutainment). We show people that B2B content can be deep, creative, educational, and FUN! This is our WHY, this is our purpose, and by helping people see this and execute on it, we drive business and results 1.) Customer Insights/Ideation: Every topic or subject we come up with ultimately originates from our customers and/or our unique point of view I mentioned above 2.) Content Channels and Mediums: We chose LinkedIn, TikTok, and added Youtube/Podcast to be the dominant channels. Long form + short form = Unstoppable combo 3.) Creation and Distribution Process/Team: We use Trello to manage our content process and it makes creating content consistently, look easy. I have team members that handle all of my editing needs so I can focus my time creating the content, and running the biz

Alex Pan is one of the founders of Storipress, a new publishing platform that's being billed as the alternative Wordpress that's designed for publications and media. Pan talks to It's All Journalism host Michael O'Connell about how Storipress is sort of the love child of Squarespace, Trello, Google Docs and Substack. Keep up with the latest news about the It's All Journalism podcast, sign up for our weekly email newsletter. Also, listen to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, PodcastOne, Soundcloud, Audible, Amazon, or Stitcher. 

How would you like to reduce fitness marketing time and still continue to attract ideal clients? Yes, please, right!?  Even better, is the idea that you can potentially get better results. You'll hear why in this episode.  Cranking out content every week takes time. I'm going to start with 5 mistakes I have made, and not going to lie, I can still default to these mistakes if I'm not careful!  However, I want to say this, having to create content for two-arms of my business, our Flipping50® community and our Fitness Health Coaches and Trainers - has been the biggest eye-opening experience of my life.  You can create MORE all day. And I'll tell you, I am prolific. It's my superpower. I'm joking! It's my safe place. I love to create. So naturally this is where I'll bury myself on a Sunday morning. Not because I'm behind or don't have a book or a walk or something better to do, I truly love it. But content creation - whether packages and services, or blogs and podcasts - that are not marketed… don't help you or I.  How bizarre is that? I just said that creating marketing copy that you don't market doesn't work. What I mean is the only way you can reduce fitness marketing time - and want to - is if you are getting the content you do create out there. You never want to create a podcast … post about it once, and never again talk about it!!!  5 Ways to Reduce Fitness Marketing Time Script your videos. Don't just turn on the camera and riff. At least not until you have an established audience and you go live and have people there who will ask questions.  When you start scripting… you may realize as I do, I don't have one video, I have 5. I have 5 short videos that I can drip out this next 2-3 weeks and stay congruent with the topic that is in alignment with whatever we're promoting.    Batch record.    This is easy, when you do #1. Maybe it's not batch record. Maybe it's creating 12 photos of you with different expressions or using professionally done images in new ways. Maybe it's finding the images you want to use or the graphics you're going to use in Canva.com   Create posts in advance.    I'm still of the school of thought that posts done in real time do better. At one point, who didn't use Hootsuite, or some other 3rd party scheduler? Even Facebook or Instagram in advance - though they're popular - I generally don't. What I do is create the content and use Trello.com so that the content is there, I copy it, paste it to the site and I'm done in minutes.   Observe engagement    First because it informs what you do more of, what you stop doing or do less of, but also because this can be done in 15 minute increments every day. It's THIS… not the post itself but you engaging with the followers who comment that matters!     Think ahead.    The more time you spend regularly before you go into production mode, the more reduction in your actual time creating marketing content you will spend. I do this “think time” while I'm lifting weights or I'm taking a hike. It's the best place for ideas to come to me! What's coming up right now? Superbowl, Valentine's Day, St Patrick's Day, Spring Break, March Madness…. What do you want to do with each of those? What are you launching next month, the month after that? What do your clients need to know before they'd realize they need what you're selling? That content pre-meditated and not “hey, we're open” is the difference between engaging content and flat feeling like an ad content.  People are on social media to see family and friends. No one wants to feel judged, like they're in school, or to see an ad in your timeline posts.  A little bonus is this… I've found that no longer is 4 posts a day on Facebook an advantage. And the more time I give my reels on Instagram to marinate and be the most recent content, while using stories to stay TOMA, the better they do. So reduce fitness marketing time by posting less.. Could also work for you. Test it.  What about you? Ways you reduce your fitness marketing time? Other Episodes You Might Like: 10 Social Media Tips That Work for Fitness & Health Professionals: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/social-media-tips-2/ Generate Simple Social Media Content Fast | Fitness Coaches: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/social-media-content/ Fitness Marketing Secrets to Recession-Proof with Bedros Keuilian: https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/fitness-marketing-secrets/ Resources: Health & Fitness Business Scorecard:https://www.fitnessmarketingmastery.com/scorecard

Over the last 10 years, Monica has built sales teams for Panjiva (acquired by S&P Global), Trello (acquired by Atlassian), and RedIQ (acquired by Berkadia/Berkshire Hathaway).   Then, in 2018, She decided to change everything.   She wanted to help founders and sales teams reach their goals in the fastest way possible. She wanted to get out of the day-to-day grind and get to the heart of what was going to drive meaningful results. Now, She has helped over 100 companies unlock their next level of growth, delivering well over $20M in revenue and $100M in value creation. Some of the topics that we covered are:   The Concept of Product Led Growth The Concept of Hyper-Specialization The South Park Model of Account Management Importance of Customer Journey Post Sales  The Concept of Highlight Moments  Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you're listening to the show.   Links & Resources:    5ive Limes: https://www.linkedin.com/company/5ive-limes/ Monica's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monica-stewart/    Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:   BluBrry | Deezer | Amazon | Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia   Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you're listening to the show.

Today's conversation fits under the P of Promotion. If you're a regular here, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the 7Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. (If you're new here and don't know what I'm talking about you can download your 1page marketing plan with the Humane Marketing version of the 7 Ps of Marketing at humane.marketing/1page. It comes with 7 email prompts to really help you reflect on these different Ps). My guest today is Teresa Heath-Wareing. Teresa Heath-Wareing is an online business, marketing & mindset expert who works with business owners from across the world, helping them to build a business and life they love. As well as inspiring members to dream big and set ambitious long term business goals, Teresa equips them with practical actionable steps to get them closer to their goals. Her holistic emphasis on the whole business, and the mindset of the business owner, enables her members to navigate the world of running a business with Teresa as their biggest cheerleader. An international best-selling author, award winning speaker and TEDx speaker. She is the host of the Your Dream Business Podcast.Teresa is recognised alongside some of the world's digital marketing thought leaders and is widely regarded as one of the UK's leading marketing influencers. In this episode, you'll learn about humane listbuilding as well as... How to get started with building an email list How to get people on to your list, in a saturated market where we all have too much email already? How to create a 'Freebie' worth downloading What about the tech? What do we send out once people downloaded our Freebie? How do we make Email Marketing humane and non pushy? And so much more Teresa's Resources Teresa's Mindset Hacks for Small Business Owners Teresa's Website Your Dream Business Podcast Connect with Teresa on: LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Sarah's Resources Watch this episode on Youtube (FREE) Sarah's One Page Marketing Plan (FREE) Sarah Suggests Newsletter (FREE) The Humane Business Manifesto (FREE) Gentle Confidence Mini-Course Marketing Like We're Human - Sarah's book The Humane Marketing Circle Authentic & Fair Pricing Mini-Course Podcast Show Notes We use Descript to edit our episodes and it's fantastic! Email Sarah at sarah@sarahsantacroce.com Thanks for listening!   After you listen, check out Humane Business Manifesto, an invitation to belong to a movement of people who do business the humane and gentle way and disrupt the current marketing paradigm. You can download it for free at this page. There's no opt-in. Just an instant download. Are you enjoying the podcast?  The Humane Marketing show is listener-supported—I'd love for you to become an active supporter of the show and join the Humane Marketing Circle. You will be invited to a private monthly Q&A call with me and fellow Humane Marketers -  a safe zone to hang out with like-minded conscious entrepreneurs and help each other build our business and grow our impact.  — I'd love for you to join us! Learn more at humane.marketing/circle Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Android to get notified for all my future shows and why not sign up for my weekly(ish) "Sarah Suggests Saturdays", a round-up of best practices, tools I use, books I read, podcasts, and other resources. Raise your hand and join the Humane Business Revolution. Warmly, Sarah Imperfect Transcript of the show We use and love Descript to edit our podcast and provide this free transcript of the episode. And yes, that's an affiliate link. Ep 156 [00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, humane marketers. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast, the place to be for the generation of marketers that cares. This is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today's conscious customers because it's humane, ethical, and non-pushy. [00:00:23] I'm Sarah z Croce, your hippie turn business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and marketing impact pioneers. Mama Bear of the Humane Marketing Circle. And renegade author of marketing like We're human and selling like we're human. If after listening to the show for a while, you are ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like-minded, quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency what. [00:00:52] Works and what doesn't work in business, then we'd love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. If you're picturing your [00:01:00] typical Facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. This is a closed community of like-minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together once per month in a Zoom Circle workshop to hold each other accountable and build their business in a sustainable way. [00:01:16] We share with transparency and vulnerability what works for us and what doesn't work, so that you can figure out what works for you instead of keep throwing spaghetti. On the wall and seeing what sticks. Find out more at humane.marketing/circle, and if you prefer one-on-one support from me. My Humane Business Coaching could be just what you need, whether it's for your marketing, sales, general business building, or help with your big idea like writing a book. [00:01:47] I'd love to share my brain and my heart with you together with my almost 15 years business experience and help you grow a sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. If you love this [00:02:00] podcast, wait until I show you my Mama Bear qualities as my one-on-one client can find out more at Humane Marketing slash coaching. [00:02:10] And finally, if you are a Marketing Impact pioneer and would like to bring Humane Marketing to your organization, have a look at my offers and workshops on my website@humane.marketing. [00:02:31] Hello friends. Welcome back. I hope you're doing well. Before we dive into today's conversation, I just want to take a moment to tell you a bit about what's new in our community. The Humane Marketing Circle. As you know, that's the community for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who are ready for something different, something new, a new way of marketing, and a new way of business building really. [00:02:58] and also a new [00:03:00] way of being in community. So here's how our community calls work. In the first half of the call, members bring their questions and we have a conversation about what works for us in marketing. For example, on one of the last calls we talked about ai. We share tools, but also discuss benefits, dangers, and overall ethical questions that AI brings up. [00:03:27] And in the second half of the call, we always go into breakout rooms to have a more intimate conversation with another heart-centered entrepreneur, which is super valuable to have kind of this one-on-one or two-on-one feedback. And this month's topic is the P of Personal Power, and we discuss how. Our core values make us and our business really different from our peers. [00:03:55] So that's the format of our calls. And in [00:04:00] 2022 we came together once per month for a call. But now in 2023 we have two monthly meetings and one of the calls is hosted by me, the other call is hosted by one of our ambassador team members in turn. So there's a small team of ambassadors, circle members who are now have stepped up and are now hosting these calls in turn. [00:04:24] And I'm just so happy to see that taking place cuz that was exactly my vision for the Humane Marketing Circle. Kind of this responsibility of the members stepping up. That means we get even more opportunity to bring our questions and learn from everyone. We're also currently transitioning to our new community platform on Cajabi, and it really looks great and has all the features that we were missing on Trello, which was the tool that we used to use before. [00:04:59] And so that [00:05:00] new platform helps us stay connected with each other, in between the calls, hold each other accountable with challenges, messaging between members and so much more. And really, I resisted this for a long time because it's just not my zone of genius to kind of facilitate these online platforms or, or groups. [00:05:22] But the members have asked for it. And so we're creating it. And actually to help me with the facilitation of this community, this online community, I also just hired a community facilitator. So not to be confused with a social. Manager who's just posting questions and, and you know, visuals and quotes and things. [00:05:46] But really, Eddie that's the name of the great guy that we hired as a community facilitator. His main role is to facilitate the interactions between members, nurture [00:06:00] relationships, and help people get answers within that online community. And Eddie studied this, so he studied community design and I'm, yeah, I'm really super excited to have him on board. [00:06:14] The best thing right now is that if you join right now, the price is still at the same low $37 per month, after a $7 for seven day trial. So you can, will also just check us out to see it. Probably join just before one of the calls to get that live interaction and see if we're the right fit for you. With the second monthly call. [00:06:39] And once the Cajabi community is fully developed and active, I'll bring the rate back up to 47 per month. But for the next few weeks, it will remain at 37 per month. And that's lifetime. So if you join now, that will always be your monthly rate. So now is a good [00:07:00] time to join us and build this different way of marketing together. [00:07:05] Well that's why we're calling it a A revolution. A humane revolution. So if you'd like to be supported by a group of like-minded individuals, I call them the quietly rebellious entrepreneurs, they're also all deep think. So if that's your kind of people that you want to hang out with and learn from and share with, then check out the details at humane.marketing/circle. [00:07:34] Okay, back to the show. Today's conversation fits under the P of promotion. And if you are already regular here, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And if this is your first time here, big warm welcome. You probably don't know what I'm talking about, but you can download your one-page marketing plan with the humane marketing [00:08:00] version of the seven Ps of marketing@humane.marketing slash one page, the number one and the word page. [00:08:08] And this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different PS for your business. . So my guest today is Teresa Heath Waring, and she is an online business marketing and mindset expert who works with business owners from across the world, helping them to build a business and life they love, as well as inspiring members to dream big and set ambitious long-term business goals. [00:08:37] Teresa equips them with Practic. Actionable steps to get them closer to their goals. Her holistic emphasis on the whole business and the mindset of the business owner enables her members to navigate a world of running a business with Theresa as their biggest cheerleader, an international bestselling author, award-winning speaker and [00:09:00] TEDx speaker. [00:09:00] She is the host of your dream business podcast, which where I used to be a guest as well. And Theresa is recognized alongside some of the world's digital marketing thought leaders and is widely regarded as one of the UK's leading marketing influencers. . In today's episode, I asked Teresa to come onto the Humane Marketing Podcast to talk about Humane List building. [00:09:27] Theresa and I discussed the following topics, how to get started with building an email list, how to get people onto your list in a saturated market where we all have too much email already, how to create a freebie really worth downloading. How about the tech that so many people are afraid of what to send out once people actually downloaded our freebie and our on our email list, and how do we make email marketing humane and non-pushy [00:10:00] and so much more? [00:10:01] So let's just dive right in. Here's Theresa and me talking about humane list building. . Hi Theresa. I'm so excited for our conversation. [00:10:13] Teresa: Yay. Thanks for being here. Nice too. No, my pleasure. I'm excited too. Wonderful. [00:10:18] Sarah: So we could have had. So many topics to talk about, right? Mm-hmm. . But when we first chatted I was like, well, you just finished one of your list building challenges. [00:10:29] And so I was like, oh, I think that is a good one. And we actually met on a, what was it called? Exactly, something with Authentic Marketing Summit with Marcy. And, and so I was like, oh, okay, so this is the right person to talk about humane list building. And so that's what I yeah, that's what I think where we can go. [00:10:50] But as I just said offline, I think for most people it's like, okay, that sounds like a good idea to build your email list. [00:11:00] But where do I get started? How do I get started? Yeah. So maybe just tell us a little bit about who you are and then as you can tell, We have a habit here to just dive in. [00:11:12] That is and go into the [00:11:13] Teresa: topic. I have no problem with that. So I am a a business owner, an online business owner, a speaker, a podcaster, an author. But basically I help amazing business owners, predominantly women. Not that I only work with women, but I seem to attract a lot of women who are trying to create a business and life that actually works for them and their season of life, and isn't something that they've looked at that some experts told them, it's gotta be this way, or you've gotta win this much, or you've gotta charge this much, or you've gotta earn seven figures and you've gotta do it online. [00:11:49] It's about understanding who they are and what they want and what's important to them and their season of life, because we all have other people in our world and other things in our world, and we need to [00:12:00] make sure that our business balance with those things so that we're creating. Not this monster that actually we end up going, this is not what I want to do. [00:12:09] Mm-hmm. we create something that we're going to love. So I do that and I do it in a variety of ways and, and those ways include more of a mindset, kind of motivational, inspirational side. But also I'm incredibly practical because of the fact of, I have 18 years experience in marketing now, which is a really long time. [00:12:30] And I have worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of business owners during that time. . I know that sometimes you need the motivation and the inspiration and the mindset and the personal development, and sometimes you just need someone to give you a straight answer. So hopefully that's what I bring with both. [00:12:48] And one of the things that I talk a lot about and one of my, my key things I guess, that I teach on is list building. And it's so important because no matter what [00:13:00] role I've been in and I've been in, as you can imagine, many, many, many different marketing roles from, you know, heading up corporate marketing for Land Rover UK to working with a teeny tiny company that has no budget and I have to do everything. [00:13:12] So I've kind of done it all. And one thing that has never really gone away, and in fact in my mind is just going to strength to strength is email marketing. Mm-hmm. , and I think probably a few. Years back when social media really kicked in, maybe, gosh, even now. Well, I started my business eight years ago and it was probably at that point it was really getting good for business. [00:13:36] I think people thought, oh, well we have all these new amazing ways I'm gonna do this and I don't need to think about some of these old school ways. But actually that's moved. Email has moved with social media and with technology. And when you are in marketing or when, well, whether you have a business or whatever it is, and you're trying to market more options are better than less always.[00:14:00] [00:14:00] So it's so important to make sure that you've got that email list or you have another way to contact them. And the other key thing is that often, if. Communicating with your clients or your per perspective customers through social media. You don't own that platform. That platform is not you. Yours, you are marketing on borrowed ground. [00:14:17] So basically you are marketing on something that doesn't belong to you. And at any point, as we well know, because Instagram changes like the wind, that they can change something and it completely affects everything. And at the moment, you know, and I'll openly talk about stuff myself, but my own Instagram is terrible at the moment. [00:14:34] Like in terms of the engagement on the post, it's so much worse than it used to be. So we need to make sure we have somewhere else that we can market directly to our customers. So in terms of getting started, it's a couple of things, and this is why I think so many people get put off by it because it can feel overwhelming. [00:14:52] there's a few things you have to think about first. First is how are you gonna email them? And this is the bit that no one wants to think about cuz this is the [00:15:00] tech. But ultimately you can't do this without some tech, but it's not big and massive and huge and it's not fancy funnels and clever things. [00:15:11] It's just a case of you need a system that you can add email addresses to and then send an email to those people. Now you can't do it through your normal email, so you can't do it through. . If you know you're using a business address or a Gmail, or it's hosted by Gmail, or you're an Outlook, you can't send them through that. [00:15:29] And the reason you can't do that is, one, they're not designed to do that. And two, you have to have an unsubscribe on a marketing email, and you can't have that. That isn't standard. It has to be standard. So it's much safer and much smarter to get a system. Now, the one I recommend for everyone getting started is mail light. [00:15:49] Lots of people know MailChimp. Mm-hmm. . And I know lots of people are on MailChimp, and they might be like, well, why wouldn't you recommend MailChimp? I describe MailChimp. Not that they would thank me for it but I [00:16:00] describe them as like, A house. So a house that was built a long time ago, and then they had an extension put on, and then they realized they needed more rooms. [00:16:08] They added a bit over here, and then they wanted something over here and then, and basically they've built on, so mail ch MailChimp was there for a really long time, but they've added in all that functionality after the fact. And it just doesn't quite seem to flow right. It doesn't quite seem to like, it's not very intuitive. [00:16:26] It's not particularly easy. There's a couple of really funky, weird things that it does. So for me, someone like Maite who started off basically as if they bought a piece of land and go, right, how are we gonna build this? And then they built it right in the first place because obviously they, they're not that old, whereas MailChimp is old. [00:16:41] So [00:16:41] Sarah: I think that's another fact, like, you know, MailChimp is old or you know, in terms of social media, old, and so they constantly had to adapt. And so that's why it's just house stuck. I kept building on other things. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Where if, if you take a newer company, well they build [00:17:00] with this current circumstances in what we need. [00:17:02] Yes, [00:17:02] Teresa: yes, yes. And obviously there's gonna come a point where, you know, Mala light has to tweak and change and all the others do. And they do always constantly, but it's almost like, it's almost like they wanna start again with MailChimp. But like I said, lots of people use them. But if you haven't chose a system, or even if you are using MailChimp, male light really, really is good. [00:17:21] Very intuitive, really simple to use. But basically you need to. . So like I said, set that up and say, okay, now I've got somewhere where I can put emails in and I can email from Now, whether that's you then taking an email list that you've created in Excel or something like that and literally just putting it across, or whether that's you then creating something called a lead magnet or a content upgrade grade or whatever you wanna call it. [00:17:47] But basically you are creating an incentive to ask them to come onto your list. Right? Because as much as we'd like to think that people wake up one day and go, oh, I wonder if that person that I barely know or just followed on Instagram has an email, is they'd love to get on it. Like that [00:18:00] doesn't happen. [00:18:00] So even though we often have get on our list, on our website or something like that, I think if you honestly asked yourself how many people have opted in through that in the last month, I think most people would be like a few, a handful of people are opting in. If that makes, [00:18:15] Sarah: I'm gonna pause you there, Teresa. [00:18:16] Cause I wanna, before we move on to the opt-in or the freebie or the the lead magnet, I wanna come back to the tech because I think. You know, like you said, so many people will start with MailChimp or, or the question I have since you recommended mail or Light, is that a platform that can grow with you? [00:18:36] You, you would say that, you know, people with big businesses are still able to use? [00:18:42] Teresa: Yes and no. It's a great one to start with and it will certainly grow with most small business owners. Mm-hmm. , it can do an element of the automations. It has some good functionality in it and it's good. However, when I teach my course, I talk about three different platforms. [00:18:58] I talk about main light. If you're just [00:19:00] getting started, if you know how to do emails and you wanna start getting a bit fancy and having some call automations, then I use Active Campaign and it's very. Again, a lot of these platforms though, it's what you're used to. So there are, there's Convert Kit that's very similar. [00:19:15] There's Drip that's very similar, so there are lots of them out there and this is half the problem. Yeah, it's too, too much choice. way too much choice. And then the one I recommend, if you're going all in on an online business and you're having a membership and a checkout and landing pages and all this kind of cool stuff, then from a cost point of view, something like Kajabi could be really good. [00:19:35] Mm-hmm. . So what Kajabi has that the others don't is the facility to do all of that stuff and do it really well. The problem comes, so I currently use Kajabi to host my membership. However, I'm at a point now where I have a guy who builds all my landing pages for me. So I have a tech guy who does all that and they're built on WordPress. [00:19:57] And also I have some cool things like I have a [00:20:00] quiz. And that quiz had to plug into somewhere and Kajabi couldn't handle it. Mm-hmm. . So I've now moved to Active Campaign. I say now it's about a year. So I have active campaign for my emails. I have Kajabi for those other things. But when you, again, when you first get started, if you're going in the online world, the emails can't do. [00:20:19] Kajabi are great, but they can't go to the level the active campaign can do, or I wouldn't say they can. . And therefore at the beginning you don't wanna pay for two systems, which I didn't. I just used Kajabi and I kind of thought it is what it is, you know, I'll just have to go with it. And it was perfectly fine and good enough and capable for the job. [00:20:38] But active campaign now is much cooler. [00:20:41] Sarah: I love that you explained that because I think, yeah, there's one thing is like, okay, I wanna plan big and go big. Mm-hmm. and therefore I'm gonna go for something like, you know, Kajabi. Which was also my move. I went from, actually, I started out with Malechi, then went to AWeber, then went to Active Campaign, and this is over years and [00:21:00] years. [00:21:00] Yeah. And, and then now finally to Kajabi. And just like you, there's a little tiny me piece of me as like regretting the move to Gujabi. Yeah. Because once you're used to something like Active Campaign, which is built only for email. Yes. Then. Cajabi does not do the same job like it. It's just not, so, yeah, all it is to, to explain that, it obviously depends where your business is at. [00:21:26] Malar Light seems like a good place to start and you almost kind of maybe do have to plan that eventually, you know, there's gonna be a [00:21:35] Teresa: move. And like you said, how many of you had, how many have I had? I was male Chimp, then I was Drip cuz I went and did a certification over in Minnesota. Then I did Infusionsoft. [00:21:47] Right. So I went like, that was, and I mean, if you wanna go crazy, I mean Infusionsoft is insane. And then I went Kajabi and now I've added back in Active campaign. Mm-hmm. But like I said, it was just for that l that extra bit of [00:22:00] functionality. If you are sending emails, if you are wanting automations to go. [00:22:05] it will do it. You can do sequences in Kajabi. So it's not that it's a terrible system, but obviously if you just think about it, they are building a system with so many different things. So they can't put all of the focus into just the email side of it. Whereas, like I said, active campaign convert kit, that's all they do, right? [00:22:22] So therefore they can make sure that they've created the best email side they can. Mm-hmm. But again, you know, from a money point of view, you will be absolutely fine just using Kajabi If you are doing an online business, if you're not doing an online business and you at the moment if you just want to send an email or when someone clicks something, you can send an email for that. [00:22:42] Or if someone opts into something and send an email for that male male, a light, this is where I start getting more mixed up. Cuz there are so many, and obviously male to male light are very similar male. A light is perfectly good for that. And you're right, I think. , there will come a point where you go, okay, now I need more. [00:22:58] But at that point, you'll be able to [00:23:00] afford more. Whereas the beauty of starting on something like Maite is the fact that it's so low cost. Mm-hmm. . So even the paid version, the start of the paid version is like $10 a month. Mm-hmm. . Whereas I think probably now because of the size of my list, I probably pay $200 a month fr campaign. [00:23:16] So it's a big, big difference. So like I said, get started in those others and it's a pain to move. I'm not even gonna like, pretend it's not. It is a pain. It is a pain. I mean, it's not impossible. It's not difficult really. It's just the lot of work. And of course the more you have created. So when we went from well, when we went from Infusionsoft to. [00:23:39] Kajabi, that was a pain. And when we went from Kajabi to Active campaign, it took us, well, we haven't even finished, but we spent a solid week working on moving everything across and we haven't even finished. So it's not that it's impossible, it's just that it's a new system. You gotta get used to it and you have to move things across and it will take some time. [00:23:58] So, so yeah. But don't panic [00:24:00] about that. If you're just starting and money is more of the concern. If money's not the concern, then jump straight onto active campaign. Great, fine. Be brilliant. You won't need to use all the functionality necessary straight away, but it will be there when you're ready. But if money's a concern, male light is definitely where I would start. [00:24:15] Awesome. I think that [00:24:16] Sarah: was a great tech focus, you know, and it's like, because sometimes you don't get this information. Like I, like I say, like people just tell you, well, you know, start a, a mailing list. And then they're like, [00:24:27] Teresa: well, wow, which one? Yeah. And there's so many. And I think the other thing I really wanna reassure people is I am not a tech person, like, The reason I know so much about the tech is one, I've used a lot of it myself, but also in my course I identified the fact that that is the one thing that people don't teach. [00:24:45] And that's the one and main stumbling block as to why people don't finish a process. Right? So, you know, they might, so I can obviously talk about, you know, what a lead magnet is and how we use it and what it's good for and some of the key things you need to do in it. [00:25:00] And I can talk about your board onboarding emails. [00:25:02] I can talk about your sequencing, we can talk about what to email them, we can talk about how to get 'em on that email list, which is great and people can get all that. But then the problem is they would look at the tech and some people are great and they're fine, but a lot of people would go a, I dunno what platform to use b I dunno where the hell to start and I dunno how to make this work. [00:25:19] So one of the things I did in the, in the course, and I had to teach myself it in many, many, many systems is I the process that I give them, is the process that I taught them through in the course, and one of my members that came and did it, she, how old is she? She's probably in her early sixties maybe. [00:25:41] And she was like, she'd been in my membership for ages and obviously they get support from me there, but they don't get the course. But she could have asked me any question on any coaching call. That would've been fine. But she just hadn't got round to doing it. It was like, yeah, I know what I need to do. [00:25:55] Haven't quite sorted out the tech. And we did the course and she was dreading the tech bit and we get on [00:26:00] a call and she, cuz we, we do calls alongside the course so I can answer questions and I can literally go, give me your login or open it on screen and let me see and I'll point and go click that button. [00:26:11] And, but she literally came on the call and was like, I could kiss you, literally kiss you. She said, I didn't think for one second I could do that tech side. She goes, and I literally sat there with your screen on one screen and me on another and you were, the video was like, okay, so when you're here, go here and click this. [00:26:29] She goes, and I did. And then you were like, click this and do it. Which I did. She goes and I did it and it's done. And that's the thing, like it's not difficult, but the process is very weird. So again, what's interesting is a lot of the feedback I get is I would never have started where you said to start, right? [00:26:46] And it's because. , I start them at the thank you page, which seems like a really odd place to start. Mm-hmm. . But the problem is when you are setting up a landing page, it'll say, where do you want this to redirect to? And if you haven't got that set up, you can't finish your landing [00:27:00] page. Yeah. So there's all these kind of little quirks that like, because I know the processing, cause I've done the process, it's like, okay, it's not that it's, you can't do it the other way. [00:27:10] It just makes it a lot easier and a lot quicker. Mm-hmm. . So I think, like I said, for me, I don't want people to be sat there going, yeah, it's all right for you, you're tech. I'm not, I'm really not. I just had to learn it. But it means I can teach it and it means that obviously if I will probably talk about it in a layman's way, and I also have the opportunity to have some of these providers come in and do the training on, on that for me. [00:27:32] But I didn't want them to because, because I've, I've taught you to do something very specific. I want you to show how to do that specific thing rather than here's an overview of the system, this is how it works. So yeah, it's. . And like I said, the tech bit's so important. Cause that's a bit that stumbles people. [00:27:49] Yeah. And stops people. [00:27:51] Sarah: But the other thing that you just brought up is, is there's the tech, but then there's also the understanding the process. You know, it's like [00:28:00] Yeah. You have to almost like map it out and maybe Yes. Visually map it out. And so maybe you can just do that for our listeners right now. [00:28:07] Yeah. Like, yeah. Let's start with the, you know what most people call lead magnet? I don't like that language anymore in humane marketing. [00:28:14] Teresa: Cuz it's just like, no, you're right. No, because it doesn't, the visual is not nice, right? No. There's, there's no humane about it. Yeah. Cause it's a lead magnet. Let's [00:28:22] Sarah: call it a, a freebie or I actually call it a signpost where people get to, [00:28:27] Teresa: you know a hand raiser. [00:28:28] That's another thing I call it. It's like handraiser. I like that. Yeah. I love that. I'm interested in it. I wanna know more. Yeah. They raise their hand. [00:28:34] Sarah: So let's start there and then, Talk through the process of what needs to happen [00:28:38] Teresa: behind the scenes in a way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So at the very beginning, the first thing we talk about is the, the hand raiser, the freebie. [00:28:47] And I keep it simple, so I tell them to choose something. So the first thing we have to do right at the beginning is we have to know who their customer is. And I don't just mean like, you know, what age are they and where do they shop? I mean, like, what [00:29:00] is the thing that they're really struggling with? Get to know them, speak to them, understand them, listen to them and what they've gotta say. [00:29:06] This isn't, you're not just trying to sell someone. And again, that is the point of a hand raiser. It's not a sales tool, which. , I know often can be seen as that way, and ultimately it might lead to a sale. But the idea is you as my perfect customer, as my perfect audience members, part of my community, you have a problem that I can solve because this is where my zone of genius is. [00:29:28] So I create something that addresses your problem and gives you some solutions, and you have to give them something that is good. I have downloaded that many lead magnets. I can't even tell you because this is my passion. This is what I do. Like I will drop into someone's funnel and go through it and look at it all. [00:29:46] and I've downloaded stuff that is useless, absolutely useless. And it's only just a, I want your email address. It's not a genuine, I'm trying to help you. So that's the very first thing we talk about. We need to know [00:30:00] exactly who your people are, what their problem is, and then you need to give me some very good advice to help me with that problem. [00:30:06] But we always start with a PDF download, which I know sounds very unimaginative and there's much better ways to attract your perfect audience, but they're much bigger and more complicated. So I've got a. , it was a very big process to do that quiz and I had an expert help me. So even though it might be like, well, it's just a pdf, we'll make it the best PDF they've ever downloaded, but it is. [00:30:27] So basically we find one problem and we give them five points and we say, this is how I can help you with my five points. Okay. So it's like and one thing that actually always comes up and you know, this podcast has gone for hours, by the way, cuz I can talk about this for literally hours. [00:30:42] Sarah: Well, they'll, they'll just have to come to your [00:30:44] Teresa: course, you know, well love, like, it's not a sales message, but that's, that's what it's [00:30:49] But like, so one of the things we talk about is sometimes the problem that they've got. So let's say I am a coach that helps people who have got imposter syndrome, let's say. That was my business. [00:31:00] Well, the problem is, Possible customers or people I can help might not know they've got imposter syndrome. [00:31:08] Mm-hmm. So what they do is five ways to help you get over imposter syndrome. Well, that's great if I know I've got it, but I don't know I've got it. Mm-hmm. So, one thing, and that's often a mistake, you really choose. So the thing that you need to think about with the lead magnet, with your title, with your, your freebie, and the thing you're offering them is it needs to sing to them. [00:31:27] It needs to, they need to read that and go, that's me. Mm-hmm. . Whereas if I don't know what that is, if I've never heard of the phrase imposter syndrome, but what I might know is my symptoms or what I might know is the problems that I have. So they need to get quite granular with that. So it might be that do you worry that you're gonna get found out one day question mark if I read that, and whether I knew what in Imposs syndrome was or not, and whether I, you know, thought I had it or not. [00:31:54] I would read that and go, yeah, that's me. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . So, but I would only know that and know [00:32:00] that language cause I know my customer really well. So that piece, yeah, that's [00:32:04] Sarah: unfortunately, that's often a problem, especially for coaches, right? Because they're so into their specialty or into their methods that unfortunately they're marketing [00:32:15] Teresa: the method where Yes. [00:32:16] Yeah. And they're not talking to the problem. Yeah. And sometimes people are like, yeah, but I don't wanna be negative. And it's like, it's not that you're being negative, it's that sometimes the only way, you know. So if you rephrase it and said, you know, do you fear that one day you'll be found out? I know it sounds negative, but the point is it resonates cuz that's the kind of thing I might say. [00:32:38] And what's quite nice for me and you, , I've always kind of hoped and thought that this is my superpower, is I'm able to think about who their customer might be and what their customer might say. And sometimes I am a potential customer. Yeah. Sometimes I'd be like, well actually I would never say that. This is what I would say. [00:32:55] Yeah. And it, it inevitably is not the same language because like you said, [00:33:00] when you are an expert in your world, in your field, you are gonna use the right terms. You are gonna think of, like you said, the solution. And the solution is, you know, you've got imposter syndrome and I've got tools to help you with imposter syndrome. [00:33:12] Well, I don't know. I've got that. Mm-hmm . So that's the first thing. Really understanding that customer is key. Coming up with something that is genuinely going to help them, that is genuinely going to fix their problem is the next thing. So like I said, we know downloads can be, excuse me, I'm gonna cough. [00:33:29] I'm so sorry. Yeah. I could feel it building. And I, a sneeze coming as well. I'm so sorry. I never do. That's fine. [00:33:40] Is it gone all good, ? I think so. Hope so. Sorry, sorry, sorry. So like I said, you wanna create that lead magnet, that freebie that is really good quality. So when they get it, it actually gives them something. Don't be scared about giving away too good of stuff. You're talking basics. Okay. So you're not talking like your secret source or your method or your whole, like this is how to do [00:34:00] it, start to finish, but the stuff you're telling them is really good stuff. [00:34:04] So when we're in the process, the very first thing they do is create that thing and we do it in you know, something like Canva or Adobe Express, and they get all the templates and basically they make it look nice and they create this P D F that they've got that they can give someone. Then what we do, And we do everything to get it ready before we go into tech. [00:34:26] Cuz that's the other thing, like I said, once you get into tech, you don't wanna then go, you're halfway through a process, you have to go and write some stuff and by the time you come back you're like, I can't remember where I was or what I was doing. So then what you're going to do from that point is you're gonna think about the words that you want to be on your signup page. [00:34:42] So the page that is the landing page where someone goes and goes, yes, I would like that. So based on what you've written, you write some words on that and there's a format to it and, and there's a way you can do it. But basically you're saying to them, if you have problems with this, this, this, this, or if you're struggling with this, this, this, this. [00:34:58] If you find you are this, this, [00:35:00] this, then. In this download, I'm gonna help you with this, this, this. So then you've got the copy for that and we make sure we've got some images as well. So within the template thing, we create social images and we create images for the landing page. Then you want to start writing your emails that you're going to send to them. [00:35:16] Cuz the minute they download that, you are gonna want to automate some emails. And I think the word automation scares people. It's really not that difficult. It's like when they opt in this form, send them this thing, wait a day, send them this thing, wait two days, send them this thing. So then what we do is we write all our emails and, and again there's like templates to follow and that sort of format. [00:35:37] And we got our, our titles, our subject lines, we've got our preview text, they've got our emails. So basically we have everything ready to roll. Before we go to the tech. So they literally have a Google doc of all their stuff. They have their images, they have their P D F, they have the pictures, the lot and things like as well. [00:35:57] There might be a little blurb about who you are and what [00:36:00] makes you an expert. So then what we do is when we go to the system, the thing that we start with is the, well, you can do a couple of things, but depending on what system you're using and which order it goes in. Because again, it's all different. [00:36:15] But normally you'd build a thank you page first. And the thank you page is a really simple page that acknowledges the fact that they've opted in. And it might tell them things like, make sure you check your spam cuz it might have gone in there. And if you don't get it, email us here. Or if you know you haven't found it, if you wanna link to something else on that page, you can. [00:36:32] You could always say, go and take a look at my website, or I wrote a blog on this, or whatever it is. But normally, and again, when getting started, don't over confuse yourself just. , a plain thank you page that has your logo and a nice image or whatever on it in your font saying Thank you. It's on its way. [00:36:47] And don't forget to shake your junk. So that's on the thank you page. So we'd build that first. Then what we'd probably build next is the email sequence. And again, it can depend on different systems, but you'd need to build that [00:37:00] sequence. So basically this is an automation, and you would say, okay, I want to create an automation. [00:37:05] And you might put the trigger in there. You might put the trigger somewhere else. Again, this is where different systems differ. Depends on the tool. Yeah, it does. But basically you are saying, okay when this thing happens, I want you to, and it can be like, so active campaign. It could be a tag. So when this tag is added, start this and you can decide the tag. [00:37:25] And, and we normally have decided the tag by this point. , you would start the automation. When someone gets this tag, start this thing and it'd like send them an email immediately. And then you put in your copy and your text of the email. The other thing you're gonna need to do is link to the thing that they've got and things like, the one key thing, and I saw this the other day with someone, is I opted in for their thing and they had a huge email and the link was hidden. [00:37:51] Well, they say hidden, but it was amongst a lot of texts of the thing. I actually was trying to die in load. And then there was about another four or five links of various different other things they were trying to tell me [00:38:00] to do. And a 20% off discount if I bought my first thing. And it's like, we too much, too much do too much. [00:38:06] Because then again, you're jumping straight into the sale. And again, that's not humane. That's not, we are coming from a point of serving. We're coming from a point going, I know you struggle with this and I can help because that's what I do and that's what I'm brilliant at. Mm-hmm. And yes, of course we all need to be paid. [00:38:24] And of course there are paid things that you can have. But at that point, that's too early. So the first email is just an email that says, here you go. There's your thing. Like you asked for it. There it is. And I think on the copy it normally says something like, and I'll be in touch in a couple of days to let you see how you got on. [00:38:44] And again, one thing I find, especially with a brand new sequence of someone brand new, tell them what to expect. Mm-hmm. . Okay. So in that first email, say, I'll be back in touch tomorrow, or I'll be back in touch in two days, so that when your email does fall into their inbox, they're not gonna think, oh, [00:39:00] she's hounding me. [00:39:01] Mm-hmm. , because I've already told you that this is what's going to happen. One thing [00:39:05] Sarah: that I really like doing is using numbers and brackets. So one out of five and then they know, okay, this is the first emails, then there's gonna be four more. And so I use that in all the subject lines and people really like it. [00:39:19] I use that also in like mini-series where I'm like, I'm gonna be talking about this topic over five emails. Mm-hmm. , you know that these are coming, right? Yes. So I guess especially in an onboarding series, that would be really helpful [00:39:32] Teresa: for people that like, yes, super helpful. It's a great idea. And like you said, so, and, and I think as well, people are, I know people are struggle with marketing and they really like, you know, they think it's sleazy and slimy and horrible, but as long as people know what to expect from you, it's when they're caught off guard. [00:39:50] It's when you've said to them, I'm gonna email you once a week, or I'm gonna email you once a month and then you send five in two days. Like, that's not okay. That's not. [00:40:00] Alright to do, right? So it's about being really honest and going, this is what I'm going to do. And thinking as well as serving. So I often say, when I generally talk about emails, like you have to ask yourself, who cares you well with anything we do? [00:40:15] Who cares? Like am I giving them something in that email that they're going to want to read? Am I giving them something that is going to be of value to them? Because if all I'm doing is telling them to buy my stuff, that is of no value to them. Now if I'm telling them a story that will give them a lesson or a learning, and then at the end of that email I say, and actually if you want more help with this, I can, and here's how you can get that help, then that's different. [00:40:41] So [00:40:41] Sarah: I think that's important to mention as well, because I know a lot of my clients. And, and I'm sure maybe yours as well. We, we have heart-centered clients and so they're actually, they already know that they want to serve, right? Yes. But it's the actual selling piece that's kind of difficult. And [00:41:00] so just this morning a client said to me that her subscribers told her they don't want more than one message per month. [00:41:06] And I said, I understand that. And that is good that you ask what they want, but you also need to look out for yourself because you are running a business. And so you don't just want to only serve and share great content, you still also need to sell. That's why they are on your email list. So it's finding that balance, [00:41:26] Teresa: right? [00:41:27] It is, it is. And, and like you said, it. For me, again, asking that question is lovely. And I asked it funnily enough just the other day, but I sent three emails a week. Yeah. So, and I asked them, and I said to them, I'm gonna slow down in August. Cause obviously August is our UK summer holiday and I have a daughter and a stepson and you know, hopefully might take a little bit time off at some point. [00:41:48] But for me I was like, so I'm probably gonna send like two emails a week this time. And I, and then, so I said, actually, drop me an email back and let me know what you think about that. And I've had people in the past go, I'd like less [00:42:00] and, and as long as I'm consistent, as long as I told them this is what it's going to be, and I communicate with them and I am thinking of doing less, I'm thinking of maybe just doing two a week on a Wednesday and a Thursday and I will email them going, I've been having a think and I think this is what I'm gonna do and this is why I'm gonna do it. [00:42:16] And, you know, so I think it's that communication and again, treating people like they're real humans. Yeah. Because they are real humans. [00:42:23] Sarah: I think what people get scared because they, the tech is involved and they feel like, Okay, so now this is, you know, the techy part of the business. Yeah. Where nice. It's not, you can still be yourself in these emails and, and Yeah. [00:42:37] Even though you're talking to many people, you're still talking as if you were talking just to one [00:42:43] Teresa: person. I write every email as if I'm talking to one person. Yeah. And, and I personally reply to everyone that responds. Mm-hmm. And I ask them to respond. Mm-hmm. And whether that takes me 20 minutes or three days, I'm the one that responds. [00:42:58] And my team know that they [00:43:00] leave those emails alone because that, and again, I don't have a copywriter. Right. My emails, I write them and I joke that they're probably, they're not award-winning and there's gonna be typos in them. And, and kind of, I'm sorry, but I'm not, because it's like, that's not my zone of genius writing is not necessarily my zone of genius, however, The authenticity of it and the fact of, you want to hear from me so you are going to hear from me. [00:43:24] You are not going to hear from a copywriter who has relayed a story that I've told them. So again, treating it as an additional bit of content, you know, another way to communicate with your audience, but also having that two-way thing and asking them and, and including them in the decision, I think is great. [00:43:42] I do think though, once a month is not enough, nowhere near enough, because like if I said to someone post on social media once a month, and this is the analogy I always give when I get them in the course to go right, how often are you gonna email 'em? What day? And, and initially all of them would go probably once a month. [00:43:59] And then I say to [00:44:00] them, imagine just posting on Instagram 12 times a year. What do you think that would do for the business? Do you think that would mean you get good business? No, of course it wouldn't. And we need to look at emails in a similar way, so, again, it's more about what you're putting in the email than the frequency of the email. [00:44:17] Mm-hmm. . So yeah, so, so we do the sequence emails, we've got digress there. I digressed us. But we do the sequence emails and like I said, the first one is deliver the thing. The second one might be if they're brand new to you, it might be a who you are or normally. The second one for me is, okay, so you had this thing cuz you were struggling. [00:44:34] Have you seen this? So it might be, here's a podcast I did about it. Here's an article I wrote on it. Here's a video I've done on it, but it's helping them further. And then from that point you might introduce yourself, you might explain more about your, what you do, you might then, and some of my email sequences on email, four or five. [00:44:52] But again, you don't have to do this from day one. It gives 'em a video of something that's particularly. Pertinent to what they've downloaded or a [00:45:00] sneak peek into the membership because actually they downloaded a mindset thing and the membership has mindset calls in it. And then, because I have products at the end of it, I might go, if you're interested, actually you might wanna join the club or you might wanna have a look at the club. [00:45:13] And then my last email will say and, and it, this is only cause I'm leading into products that, or a service or whatever. If you are not, then you don't do this. But my last email says, you're not ready. No worries. So basically as well, and the automation is very cool, but I don't teach this. I can teach it to someone who asks, but this is not what I would tell you to get started with. [00:45:31] So for instance, in my funnel, in active campaign, at the end of every email, I have a section in the, in the process that says, did they sign up to the club? If they did, don't send them anything else. If they didn't send them this, did they sign up to the club? If they didn't, don't send them anything else. [00:45:47] If they did, if if they did, don't send 'em anything else. They didn't. And that's what I send them. No worries. That's fine. I see. And that's exactly the [00:45:54] Sarah: thing. You can't do it Cajabi like [00:45:56] Teresa: none of this is no, no, no, it's not right. No. [00:46:00] Yeah. You need a system. And I think, I think. , fairly confident. You can do an element of that in Malechi not Malechi Mailer light [00:46:09] I told you I'd get confused. Yeah, there is an element of that. You can do a mailer light, but you can't do that in Kajabi, which is why again, when switch back, I can afford it. I switched back. Yeah. But again, you know, even saying to at the end, no worries. I've offered you this thing. I think it could be cool, but you don't want it. [00:46:24] And because I very much believe in humane marketing, I don't do close and open on stuff unless it's a course, like build My List where I work with you along it, which means I obviously have to have an intake cuz we all start at the same point. But other than that, my membership is always open, so I just really nicely say at the end, no worries, I'm always here and now you're gonna start getting my regular emails, which, and I tell them what the deal is with the regular emails. [00:46:48] So, so those things. That kind of un onboarding is, is kinda key. So you need all those emails written, which they already are by this point, and then you put them into your system. So then you've got an automation, you've got a thank you page, [00:47:00] you've probably got a tag. And then the next thing we go in and do is probably set up the form again, depending on what system you're in. [00:47:06] So we set up the form first, because on a landing page, you're gonna need to put the form in it, but you can't set up the form without having stuff to link to it because it'll say, well, what do you want to do with this form? And if you haven't got a like, okay, once they filled in the form, go to this thank you page. [00:47:19] Or once they filled in the form, subscribe them to this automation. So that's why we're kind of working backwards and up. So then we do the form bit. And then once we've done the form bit, we then build the landing page. And then once we've done the landing page, all the social media posts are already written, already done. [00:47:36] So it should be as easy as. So then you'll have the link for your landing page. And then it should be as easy as, here's your social media post that you've already created. Shove the link in there when they click through to it. The rest should be absolutely fine. And then obviously we do an element of testing. [00:47:51] I test it, they test it, make sure everything looks right, reads right, and all that sort of good stuff. But yeah, it's not where the process that we go through as the [00:48:00] consumer is we see a social media post. We go through to a landing page, we put in a form, we then go to a thank you page. We then get an email. [00:48:09] We don't create it in the same process because that's not the process that's easy enough for us. Yeah. So, yeah. And I know it sounds big. It does [00:48:18] Sarah: sound right. Overwhelming when you hear it like that. Yeah. But it, it's like anything, it's definitely like Marie Felia would say it's figure outable and once you have figured it out the first time, you can just rinse and repeat. [00:48:32] That's it. The system and the process. And you will come up with different opt-ins and free. [00:48:37] Teresa: Yeah, and I had, and, and again, I promise you, I never came on here to go buy my thing. But had an amazing testimonial. The day I say testimony she just told me, but it was still amazing. One of my members bought Build My List cuz like I said, it's not included in the membership cause it's a very specific and it's followed me along. [00:48:53] So like I said, we'll literally go, has everybody done this now? Let me see it. Has it look yet great? Right once to the next thing. Because I know people need [00:49:00] that gain ability, but she had done the course the very first time I ran it and she actually hadn't been as present in the course as she wanted to because she was doing a tax return or something at the time and the timing just wasn't right for her. [00:49:13] And she actually got one of her team to go through and do the work, so. Mm-hmm. , they actually went in and did the stuff. and they did it and she obviously hadn't done it. And so then it comes a year later and she decides she needs a new lead magnet and cuz the other one had been performing well, but obviously it's nice to have a few, and again, I explain about, you know, why you would want different ones for different things. [00:49:35] And so she decided she wants a new one and she went back to the course and went through the lessons and came on one of my calls and was. I've done it, , I've just done it and, and like I literally just went back and, and did exactly what you said and I've done another one. And she was like, that's amazing. [00:49:53] And then she's doing another one. And it's like, that's the point, like by going through it with you like [00:50:00] that. And even when I'm talking about different systems, the way I try and explain, and obviously you know, you have different systems to choose from, but the way I try to explain it is if you understand what you are trying to do or what you need to do, even if you then go to a different system, you know, okay, I need a page or a landing page, which might be called a website on some things. [00:50:21] Or it might be called a site, or it might be called a page, or it might be called a landing page and I need some kind of form or opt-in or pop in, pop up. So again, where's that gonna be? And I need another page for a thank you page, and I need some kind of automation and I need something to trigger it. So even if you're moving and changing, The, like you said, the idea for me is I teach you the understanding of it and then you can rinse and repeat it. [00:50:44] Mm-hmm. , because, I dunno about you, Sarah. One of the things I found in the online space and, and talking of humane marketing and doing the right thing for our customers is, and one thing that I've been complimented on, which is lovely, is that I don't set my members [00:51:00] up on my students up to always need me. [00:51:02] Mm-hmm. , my aim is to give them the tools and the strategies and it's the empowerment for the empowerment Exactly. To do it themselves again. Yeah. Rather than, okay, I'm gonna give you so much and then, you know, if you want the rest, you're gonna have to come and do this, and do this and do this. Right. It. No, I am so over the moon and she just ha so happens to also be a member as well. [00:51:25] But even, and I, and funnily enough, when I was doing the challenge, I re-interviewed some of the past member some of the past students. And again, they said exactly the same. They were like, I did another one and I did another one. And the other thing that's really lovely actually is I have some marketers come to me and say, can I use it for clients? [00:51:41] And I'm like, if you are, you can come and learn the skill and learn the process and then offer that as a service. And then you can now be, I can create your opt-in, I can set up your email and absolutely fine. You can use my tools and my strategies and my stuff. That is fine if, as long as that's giving you another skill [00:52:00] and you are obviously not selling the corso, as long as you're using the things, that's fine. [00:52:04] And, but I love that. I love that we empower people to, to do those things so they don't have to come back to me and go, I'm gonna have to join again cuz I can't remember how to do it. [00:52:13] Sarah: Yeah, I, I just had my first group in the Humane Marketing Circle go through my book, the marketing, like we're human and they organized everything themselves. [00:52:24] So basically it's member organized and they got together, you know, amazing during three sessions, worked through my workbooks that are available for free. And so I'm like, this is exactly what we need. You know, we don't need more gurus. We need people to get empowered and then do it themselves. Just get the tools and then do it themselves. [00:52:46] And you are so right. And I think, yeah, this conversation here has been so helpful because people are like, Okay. I'm getting the big picture and I'm really getting the details and, and, and maybe they can just, you know, do it themselves now that, that [00:53:00] would [00:53:00] Teresa: be great. And for summits, right? More than enough on the challenge. [00:53:04] I had a number of people, in fact, a huge percentage of people that we talked about, you know, this is how you come up with an idea. These are sort of things that I consider and then they'd come to. , the coaching call I did alongside it. And then the next day they're like, I've created it. Yeah. And I'm like, that's amazing. [00:53:19] Awesome. Yeah. And then, and I had actually, and I'd never had this before, but I had two people actually within the five days create the thing and then they got bit stuck with the tech. Cuz obviously I can only go into so much on a challenge about that. But then they post in the group and I was like, have you changed up to that? [00:53:35] Do this to this? And they were like, I can't honestly believe you're helping me do this. Like Yeah. But you've come into the challenge trying to achieve something and you are working really hard to achieve it. Why wouldn't I help you to achieve it? Mm-hmm. Yes. I know I have a course that teaches all this, but you are so far ahead already. [00:53:51] Yeah. And I would've literally left you at the last hurdle. And, and [00:53:55] Sarah: basically they only needed that missing piece and Yeah. [00:53:58] Teresa: Yeah. And if I hadn. [00:54:00] Thought about them in the way I do and treat my audience the way I do. I'd been like, well that's fine cuz that's in the course. So if you wanna buy the course, it looks there to do that. [00:54:07] And it was like, no, this woman and the woman I was talking about, she has a young child. It was like an 18 month old and it was like, I know how difficult it was for you to turn up and go through the challenge because of how busy you are and managing the child and all this, and the fact that you've done all this. [00:54:23] and, and it was really early in the morning, and I don't, I normally, I get up and I have a morning routine and I don't look at my phone straight away. But for whatever reason, I sat in bed and I was looking at my phone and that message came up. So she'd obviously got up before a child or a child had woken her up or whatever, and gone back to sleep. [00:54:38] So she's messaging me and it was like, I don't know, six feet in the morning and I'm like, do this. And then she came back, I'm stuck on this. Try that. Okay, that works. Okay, you need to change this. And at the end of it, she was like, I can't believe. Like, but you've just done that. And it's, and like I said, why wouldn't I? [00:54:51] Mm-hmm. , you know, I'm setting people up to succeed, not to need me and buy my stuff if they don't need to. [00:54:57] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Ah, this [00:55:00] has been wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom and, and tackling the tech, because , I think, yeah, it really, people are gonna take a lot from that. If, if you would add one last tip in terms of, you know, maybe also the content, how to make it humane, you

This is the final installment of the Unstarving Musician websites for musician series. I decided to call this one "Everything Else." You can find links to the first four episodes in the series in the show notes for this episode at UnstaringMusician.com, episode 248. Choosing A Theme We'll begin with choosing a theme. Look for a theme with a design layout that supports your brand and vibe. The theme should be a fit with your music, while supporting your goals. Your theme needs to look good without compromising usability and simplicity.  The menu layout should be easy for visitors to navigate. A menu located at the top is always good, and locating it on the side is okay too. Sub menus should be easy to find. And it all needs to be easy to read. Not everyone has 20/20 vision! Your theme should allow for easy content creation and layout And it should be or have:  Easy to customize A responsive design (mobile friendly) Updated regularly Features you need Good ratings and reviews An active support team Optimized for search (SEO) A popular theme provider for WordPress is themeforest.net. I encourage you to also consider a Wordpress core themes, if you do in fact choose Wordpress as a platform. Site Content Homepage content is arguably the most important, as it will be your most visited page. Begin by defining your purpose. The objective of the copy should support the goals of your music business. Example goals include: Sell merch or services Build traffic to increase revenue Attract new fans Generate leads Attract subscribers and build a community Understand Your Target Audience As you write copy, consider that it should hook prospective fans and supporters. You want to get into their mindset by thinking about these questions. Who are the people coming to your site? Are they fans, supporters, venues, talent buyers, venues? What problems do they want to solve? What search terms would they use to find music sites like yours? By writing in the ways that your visitors speak and search, you can start building up a relationship of trust. If you answer their specific questions or solve their problem, they may become your loyal audience.  Know Your Competitors In the musician world, knowing your competitors can be thought of as “know your peers.” See what other artists in and around your genre are doing, and take note of what appears to be working for them. Borrow ideas and find inspiration in knowing your competition and peers. Lessons from the business world Search your main genre, product, service, or topic in Google. Discover which sites are ranking, and investigate what they are doing. What is the primary thing they offer? And how are they offering it? What type of content do they use on their main pages (success stories, videos, statistics)? What audience are they targeting?  Hook Your Readers from the First Line You have 15 seconds or less to capture your site visitor's interest. If you manage to do this this, your next challenge is to get them to stay on the site. You can start your copy with some exciting news or data, a one-sentence story or a question. Make sure people are hungry for more content after reading your site introduction.  Make Your Copy Scannable Your site layout is important. Most people skim read, so ensure that the text is easily scannable for them. Include headers, bulleted and numbered lists, descriptive subheadings and white space between paragraphs.  Help Readers Navigate There are multiple ways that audiences find web content. It could be from a post shared on social media, via links on other websites, via a marketing email or through a search engine results page.  People who find out about your website might not be that familiar with your brand or music, but they will appreciate a website that's clear in what it offers. Use relevant links for further details in your copy. Prominently display links to your social media accounts on your website to create connection between your brand and site visitors. I recommend including social links on every page of your website, or at least on your home, contact and about pages. People may leave your site, but they may become your social media followers and return to the site later. Talk to Readers as You Would a Friend Create a bond between your brand and the client using techniques like these: Use an active voice sentence structure like “You can book us for your private event” instead of “Our band can be booked for private events.” The passive voice is relevant when you want to sound more formal; in other cases, use the active voice to sound more personal. Address your readers directly with “you," “we” to speak from the point of view of a company (or band), and “I” for an individual voice. Write in Layman's Terms Keep your copy concise and simple. Research from The Literacy Project (sadly) tells us that the average American reads at 7th to 8th-grade level. By using simple language, you're more likely to help readers understand and remember more of what they read on your site. Use short sentences to help communicate your message clearly. Limit the use of adverbs and adjectives to keep sentences short and snappy. Avoid industry jargon.  Not all readers are experts, so replace professional terminology with simpler alternatives and use hyperlinks to other articles to provide additional information. Proof read your copy to avoid spelling and grammatical errors. Encourage Readers with a Call-To-Action (CTA) The purpose of your web copy is to encourage some kind of action. Perhaps you want visitors to make a purchase, subscribe or join your mailing list. By including a clear call to action using words like “Join,” “Sign Up,” “Get a Call,” “Subscribe,” “Watch,” and “Learn More” you can help to initiate the desired action.  Demonstrate that your CTA is worth it. A good strategy is to include some proof to back up statements you have made about your products or services. This might be through success stories, original research data, customer testimonials, press releases, awards, a relevant expert's biography, or partnerships. Your site visitors and subscribers will also appreciate freebies like free music downloads or some type of useful and hard to find information. Add Visuals People remember only 20% of what they read, but 80% of what they see and do. You can help site visitors process info by including infographics, pictures, graphs or videos in your copy. This will also help grab their attention.  Optimize for Search Engines You aim to produce copy which will be valuable to site visitors and help them to make decisions. Here are some need-to-know basics of SEO (search engine optimization). Include keywords in headlines and sub-headers Add your primary keyword to the title and H1 (primary heading) Included 5-10 additional keywords to subheadings and body text Include metadata by describing specific images, links and pages in 1-2 sentences Make your URLs readable to help your readers to understand what's inside the page Add relevant and helpful links to encourage visitors to stay on your website Optimize your visual content by adding alt tags to images and by resizing them  Keep Your Website Fresh and Up to Date Refresh your content from regularly by adding new relevant information Monitor the performance of your copy. Underperforming copy may need more examples, tips, and practical details. Repurpose your content by trying different formats, such as video  and incorporating it into your website. Optimize internal linking. Add links pointing to new articles and blog posts with related topics Core Elements Recap & Reminders These are core elements that should be part of your site content. Logo Header image Artist bio Mailing list sign-up form Music samples Professional photo(s) Video News & upcoming shows Social media icons Ways for fans to support you (i.e. tips, subscription, purchases, etc.) Add an online store A well organized navigation menu Email Forms & Incentives “Email remains an essential way to communicate with your most invested fans.  Grow your list of contacts by adding a sign-up form to your Home and Contact pages. Make sure to collect those emails as a concrete way to reach people with your newsletters.”  – Bandzoogle “The most successful musicians have learned that email marketing is one of the most valuable tools a musician or band can have.” –ConvertKit First, start a list. If you've been collecting emails at shows or for venues, use them. Start with a spreadsheet, as they can be easily uploaded to any email service. Your fans want to connect with you. If someone joins your email list, they're officially super fans. They want to hear from you. They didn't sign up to hate your or delete your emails. :) They might not know they're super fans until you give them a reason to subscribe.  Ways to get fans to join your email list Trade a free song for their email address Offer a one-time discount on merch Add a pop-up form to your website with an offer to send a discount code for your online store Have email list exclusives like ticket pre-sales Always make big announcements to your email subscribers first   Email is an owned—not rented—relationship The fans you have on your social media profiles are essentially rentals. Social media companies can and will completely throttle your reach, requiring you to pay to get posts in front of your fans' eyes. The bigger your following gets, the smaller percentage of fans who see your posts–unless you pay to boost them. Compare this to email marketing. Every time you send an email to someone's list, you're almost guaranteed that they will get that email in their inbox. Unlike social marketing, email marketing lets you own the relationship with your audience.  It's easier than ever to use email marketing software. These days, email providers like ConvertKit make every element of email marketing—from getting new subscribers to converting sales relatively easy. For example, if you wanted to only send emails to certain geographic regions, you used to have to create spreadsheets and lists with different subscribers. Not anymore. Email service providers include geo-data, giving you a better idea of where your subscribers are actually located. If you're into automating things (and you should be), you can now automate an album release cycle with the click of a button. Automation takes something that's a huge process—like promoting an album before its release date—and automates a huge chunk of the work for you. Totally worth the time investment to set up. Your email list offers revenue opportunities Here are some ways to make money through your email list. Tips If you're still recording your album and don't yet have merch to sell, you can still make money via tips. You can use a third-party service like Buy Me a Coffee, Venmo, or CashApp. Or you can ask your fans to send tips directly through ConvertKit's Tip Jar. You can add a tip jar wherever you want to collect tips from fans. Here are a few ideas:  • Social media profiles and bios  • Email footers  • Website pop-ups or animation  • Link page feature  Record and merch sales Your email list should be part of your album release strategy, but you needn't stop promoting your record once it's out. You can continue to promote your album through your email list—even selling digital copies directly through ConvertKit. Fan club subscriptions You can create fan club subscriptions with Bandzoogle or ConvertKit. Fan clubs are a tried-and-true method of wrangling your biggest supporters to not only support you regularly, but also build a long-lasting relationship with them. Through digital subscriptions, you can set multiple tiers with different support levels, much like Patreon. Ticket sales Ticket sales are where having a big email list really helps. If you have a large and diverse email list on a service like ConverKit, you most likely have useful geo-data. This means that when fans open your emails, you'll have a good idea of their location, meaning you can send them emails tailored to the shows closest to them without giving the rest of your list a case of FOMO.  Raise money to record your album These days, bands can go directly to their fans to crowdfund their albums, and you can do the same on Bandzoogle, ConvertKit and many other platforms. Selling Music Merch and More If you have the right product, you can create significant additional income. Start creating products by first developing your brand identity. Do your best to create strong brand identity that provides a unique way of identifying with fans.  When brainstorming merch concepts, think about:  • What are you trying to communicate through your merch?  • What do you want people to remember about it?  • How do you want your fans to feel when wearing, using or displaying it?  Create high-quality merch by ensuring your photos, designs and marketing are up to date and on brand. Your merch company can likely provide some high-quality photos for use these on your site. I can't stress enough the important of making your merch look high-quality and professional. Printful is one company that helps artists design, print and ship merch and they integrate will with Bandzoogle and Wordpress. They have on-demand service, so that you only pay when you have orders. Printful can also print and ship everything under your artist brand with custom labels and other branding options.  Look to other artists for inspiration on how to promote your merchandise, and make your merch accessible to your fans. Merch doesn't need to start and end with tees and hoodies. Be creative and culturally relevant. It's not all about profit. Do your best to produce things that are relevant to your audience. Set Up Shop Choose an eCommerce platform that suits your niche, and build your merch store. Your e-commerce options include Shopify, Woocommerce for Wordpress, Bandzoogle, Bandcamp, ConvertKit and more. Link your store to your social media. Link your merch on your streaming profile (e.g. Spotify profile). Some streaming services allow you to sell merchandise directly to fans. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) This is a big topic, so try not to get overwhelmed. Just take this part, one bite at a time. Research keywords, such as popular artists or hits, that fans might use to search for your music. After finding the keywords, use them in the metadata on your website and content. Include synonyms of the keywords to cover the variety of search terms that your fans are likely to use. You can use tools like Google analytics and Spotify for artists to prime your content.  Optimize your website  • Meta descriptions help internet users to get an idea of the type of music you create.  • Title tags are the headlines that the search engine will find when users search for content.  • Headers are titles that separate different sections of a post on your website. Update your website frequently, as Google crawlers prioritize unique content when ranking webpages. This could include posting snippets on different issues and linking to new songs on YouTube. Use a reputable website hosting company. This will help your site speed. The hosting company you choose should guarantee 99.9% uptime. Enhance fan engagement Keyword optimization should involve creating content that enhances fan engagement.  One way of doing this is by updating your site with the latest and greatest content related to your brand. Create new pages for every event and new music releases. Your site should be optimized for all searches related to events and music. Optimize for mobile–this is important! The good news is that most platforms handle the heavy lifting in this area. Just make sure that all the content can load quickly on mobile devices.  Create Backlinks Backlink is an SEO term, and is a powerful way of improving the rankings of your site. You can generate backlinks by making guest posts on popular music sites and by soliciting mentions from social media, YouTubers and even venues where you perform. One strategy I use for this podcast is asking guests to link to their episode and embed their episode on their website. Create a YouTube channel YouTube is second only  to Google in terms of search queries, so it helps to have a strong presence on this channel. A YouTube channel will attract fans to your curated content and direct them to your affiliated sites. YouTube has tools to help you optimize your channel. Create YouTube playlists. Google favors channels with playlists. SEO music marketing is a long-term commitment. Digital marketing for musicians can be a daunting task. Take it one bite at a time, and you can always hire a digital marketing agency to optimize your content.   Launch The key to a successful and effective launch is to get the word out so people know about it! Here are five website launch announcement ideas: Announcing your launch date and time on social media  • A countdown is a great hype element!  • Give your followers plenty of notice, so they can plan on joining the party!   • Give fans and followers behind-the-scenes images and sneak peeks  • Create buzz by sharing photos and teasers about the new website Share details about the process and plant seeds about the launch long before you release specific details. Invite your followers to stay tuned for announcements.  Keep the conversation going and generate as much hype and anticipation as possible before your site goes live. Another great way is to create hype and engagement is to send people to your site before launching, with a coming soon page that captures their emails and creates intrigue. This is also a great spot to have a countdown clock. A coming soon page will also help by giving you a way to bring attention to it on your social channels, while ensuring everything is still private until launch day. Blog about it and have a freebie or giveaway Launching your new website is not only about teasing, but also creating valuable content, and a freebie is a great addition to your launch and get people interacting with your content. You can create a blog post about your new website launch (really tell the story of the process) and have a freebie or giveaway as an add-on to get people on board with following you and not just visiting for the launch to never come back. You can also use this opportunity to promote products that you plan to release when your site is live!  Send an email to past venues and customers Reach out to past venues and customers to let them know about the new website and all the cool stuff you have planned with it. They're likely to appreciate the update. You might even renew a relationship in the process. If any of these people are influencers or have complimentary audiences, you can ask them to share the news of your website launch.  Continuity and Maintenance Websites require fresh content. The also require maintenance. These facts are important to search-ability and user experience of your website. Fortunately, the maintenance part can be greatly automated. Most hosting platforms offer full automation of site maintenance. The primary facets of maintenance and continuity are security, software updates, backups and link checking. There are other nuances, but these are among core areas that you should pay close attention. Maintenance on a self-hosted Wordpress site will require more hands on planning than if you use a platform like Bandzoogle or Squarespace.  Content requires you, the creator. Sometimes this can feel unfortunate, but then again you are a creator. :) The key to consistent content creation is planning, and the best tool I can think of for this is a content calendar. I use a Google sheet and Trello recommend for this. However you do it, it's important that you have a means of capturing ideas and planning out your content.  Planning can include drafting social posts, scheduling music release content and outlining articles. When it comes to capturing ideas, you can do this in a physical notebook or on your phone. What you don't want to do is come up with a great idea during a walk or in the middle of the night, only to forget the idea. So write it down! Or dictate it with your phones voice recorder. You can add it to your content calendar later. The best advice I can offer here is to NOT launch it and forget it. Nothing good will come of that. Have questions about any of this. Feel free to contact me. Find all my contact details here. Support the Unstarving Musician The Unstarving Musician exists solely through the generosity of its listeners, readers, and viewers. Learn how you can offer your support. This episode was powered by Music Marketing Method, a program for independent musicians looking to grow their music career. Music Marketing Method was created by my good friend Lynz Crichton. I'm in the program and I'm learning tons! I'm growing my fan base and learning about many ways that I'll be earning money in the new year. It's also helping me grow this podcast. How cool is that? To lean more and find out if Music Marketing Method can help your music career, visit UnstarvingMusician.com/MusicMarketing. This episode of the was powered by Liner Notes. Learn from the hundreds of musicians and industry pros I've spoken with for the Unstarving Musician on topics such as marketing, songwriting, touring, sync licensing and much more. Sign up for Liner Notes. Liner Notes is an email newsletter from yours truly, in which I share some of the best knowledge gems garnered from the many conversations featured on the Unstarving Musician. You'll also be privy to the latest podcast episodes and Liner Notes subscriber exclusives. Sign up at UnstarvingMusician.com. It's free and you can unsubscribe at anytime. Mentions and Related Episodes Choosing A Website Selecting the perfect theme Building the perfect homepage for your band website Band website complete checklist Writing awesome website content Email marketing for musicians Musicians email marketing with ConvertKit Guide to merch for music artists Selling merch Bandzoogle's guide to selling band  merch 10 SEO tips for musicians 6 ways to promote your music SEO for musicians SEO checklist Successful website launch ideas Trello ThemeForest Bandzoogle  Printful ConverKit Why Do I Need A Musician Website? (Ep 237) Free vs Paid Hosting For Musician Websites (Ep 239) Choosing A Domain For Your Musician Website (Ep 241) Choosing A Platform For Your Musician Website (Ep 242) Resources The Unstarving Musician's Guide to Getting Paid Gigs, by Robonzo Music Marketing Method – The program that helps musicians find fans, grow an audience and make consistent income Bandzoogle – The all-in-one platform that makes it easy to build a beautiful website for your music Dreamhost – See the latest deals from Dreamhost, save money and support the UM in the process. More Resources for musicians Pardon the Interruption (Disclosure)  Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means I make a small commission, at no extra charge to you, if you purchase using those links. Thanks for your support! Visit UnstarvingMusician.com to sign up for Liner Notes to learn what I'm learning from the best indie musicians and music industry professionals. Stay in touch! @RobonzoDrummer on Twitter  and  Instagram @UnstarvingMusician on Facebook  and  YouTube

Too many property management entrepreneurs fail to realize the potential for technology to increase the operating margin in their property management business.  Property management growth expert Jason Hull invites Lindsay Liu to discuss how property management entrepreneurs can utilize technology to make their lives (and the lives of their tenants and owners) WAY easier by automating administrative tasks. You'll Learn… [01:39] Meet Linday Liu, the Technology and Real Estate Investing Expert [03:42] The Ultimate Software for Multi-Family and Governance [08:13] Diving into the Features of Super [17:19] The Biggest Challenge in Property Management: TIME [22:00] How is Super different from Other Software? Tweetables “When I think about what makes the property management industry so challenging… time is your biggest premium.” “And at the end of the day, what are people best for? Dealing with the human side of things.” “It's better to be extremely good at a small number of things than it is to be mediocre at a wide range of things.” “The amount of care that needs to go into maintaining a healthy building is just inherently more complex when you have more stakeholders and parties in a multifamily set up.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Lindsay: When I think about what makes the property management industry so challenging, it really is time is your biggest premium, right? It is a very manual and people oriented set of tasks, right, that need to be done. And at the end of the day, what are people best for? Dealing with the human side of things, right? And so where can we come in? We can come in and help them with all of the other type of administrative, repetitive work that is not as high value from a people perspective, but is definitely very high value from an operational perspective. [00:00:29] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to The DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:01:07] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host, property management growth expert Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:31] All right, today my guest is Lindsay Liu. Lindsay, welcome to The DoorGrow Show.  [00:01:37] Lindsay: Thanks so much for having me today.  [00:01:39] Jason: So give us a little bit of background on yourself for those that don't know Lindsay, which is me as well. So tell us a little bit about you and then maybe how you sort of got connected to your business, and then we'll go into your business.  [00:01:52] Lindsay: Great. Yeah, I can go back in time a bit. So professionally, I've been in the technology space for almost 15 years now. So building, launching digital products on behalf of and with companies. So I've done that for folks like Google, Amazon, Mercedes-Benz, the MBA. And then I've also been part of growing the businesses that I've been on that side of, right, really thinking about finding product market fit, creating value propositions that make sense through the lens of technology. And then more recently ventured into the startup world. So I was at a FinTech startup for a bit, actually launched a whole new stock exchange and a software platform around that. And then it finally felt like time to build my own thing out. And the reason that I got into the property management space is that kind of alongside that professional track of work. I'd also been investing in real estate and properties. So I have everything from short-term rentals-- so I've been kind of Airbnb, vacation homes-- to long-term leases and tenants to having done some flips over time. And the common thread with that for me was really just that when you are dealing with the maintenance, when you are dealing with an investment and you're really looking to make that place a home. And a home that's going to grow in value over time. There was just a lot left to be desired in the technology space. And so I thought, why not bring these two passions together? Right? My expertise in technology, alongside my passion in real estate, and start to solve some problems for the space.  [00:03:24] Jason: Awesome. And being passionate about real estate is one thing, but also being super technologically savvy and into technology is a whole different thing. And so that's cool that you're able to merge these two things together and why don't you tell everybody what you came up with?  [00:03:42] Lindsay: Yeah, so I'm the co-founder of Super. Super is a software platform really geared for property management and what we're building is for the multi-family residential space.  [00:03:54] Jason: Okay. [00:03:54] Lindsay: So we're really looking to build tools that help with efficiency, productivity, streamlining communication, and transparency across all of the different players that exist in the ecosystem of maintaining a healthy building. So we have tools for property managers and their management teams. We have tools for sponsors and developers as well. And obviously for board members, owners, and residents of those buildings as well.  [00:04:19] Jason: Got it. So what makes this particular to multifamily instead of other niches in property management?    [00:04:27] Lindsay: Yeah, I think, you know, in my experience anyway, multifamily is a really unique situation, right? You have a group of people that are paying in for the shared maintenance and so things like repairing a roof, that decision becomes really difficult and more complicated when you're dealing with 50 or a hundred people that are part of making that decision and funding that. And so the governance and the amount of care that needs to go into maintaining a healthy building is just inherently more complex when you have more stakeholders and parties in a multifamily set up versus single family. And so we thought we would start with that pain point first. We definitely have big ambitions to continue to grow to support other types of real estate. But the multi-family space felt really like the place where we could solve some immediate pain points for folks.  [00:05:13] Jason: Got it. So when you talk about governance, this manages a little bit of the association sort of situation as well. [00:05:20] Lindsay: Exactly. Yep. So homeowners associations, condos, co-ops, really thinking about the types of tools that are needed to help accelerate decision making and help gain alignment as. Okay, cool. Random questions then. Would this work for HOAs that are not multifamily? Absolutely. We have built the tool with that in mind, knowing that we would need to expand into that. In the case of, you know, for instance, homeowners associations, I think that the level of types of challenges really depends on that community and how healthy it is on its own, right? So the number of shared amenities that you might have, the amount that you're paying in for that shared maintenance and for your common charges. And so, you know, I think if it's just you're paying in for lawn maintenance, that's a different type of responsibility set than if you have, let's say a pool with you know, many common areas that need to be maintained for that homeowner's association as well.  [00:06:17] Jason: Now, is this a tool that a property management company that already has some sort of property management software, they have rent manager or they have Resonant or you know, some sort, is this something that they would use in conjunction or is this replacing that? [00:06:33] Lindsay: I think we've really intentionally built the product to play very well and to play nice and be complimentary to whatever other suite. I think I deeply recognize that each management company already is going to have its own tech stack, right? Whether that's as simple as: we use email and we have a phone service and we use some out-of-the-box tools like, you know, maybe Slack or Trello or Basecamps, something like that. All the way to: we're using Yardi or we're using, you know, a number of other different types of software. I think our perspective on that is one of the challenges for management teams is how siloed a lot of these different solutions are, and the ability to really pull some of that data together and have that play nicely is pretty powerful on its own. [00:07:17] Jason: Yeah, I think integrations are going to be a big deal here in the future for property management. I feel like that's a space that's kind of lagged and there's a lot of companies that will integrate with vendors' property management software. But the challenge is trying to get the entire tech stack integrated can be a mess. [00:07:33] Lindsay: And I think that's exactly where I stand is from what we're trying to build the reason I've been pretty specific around that group that we're building for today, right? We're an early stage startup, is it's better to be extremely good at a small number of things than it is to be mediocre at a wide range of things as well. Right? So we really want to figure out what is the core that we're solving for? What are the biggest pain points that we should be building against, and be the experts in that. And then where we aren't, we want to make sure that we are playing nicely with the people that are the experts in that field.  [00:08:03] Jason: I agree. So tell us what Super does. Tell us about it. Tell us about the features... [00:08:09] Lindsay: mm-hmm.  [00:08:09] Jason: ...and how you can use it and what problems does this solve?  [00:08:12] Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely. So at the core, I would say first thing is to really think about us from the lens of a productivity tool, right? So it's software that is supposed to help you save time, save money, and be more efficient. So from a property manager perspective, really this is about increasing your operational efficiency and therefore your operating margin, right? You'll be able to do more things in less time. And so to enable that, we built what we call like an operating core for sets of features and functionality that allow for that. So one of the main things that we're solving for right now is communication. And I think that is the piece that again, and again and again keeps coming up. When you talk to management teams and the residents it's a pain point on both sides, right? Where maybe a request is coming in and the resident is wondering "what happened with that? What is the status of it? Did it ever get done?" And then on the other end, the management team is saying, "I'm so busy getting the thing done. I just forgot to update you on that." Right? And so there's a lot of this unnecessary friction that is happening that we think is a great opportunity for technology to automate.  [00:09:19] And the other thing that we're doing quite differently is we believe that consumers today are quite tired of having to download another app or to learn a whole new experience in order to use something. And what we've realized is we should remove all of that friction and just use the tools that people like to use today and that frankly do work for that baseline communication. So people like to email, and they like to text. So we've built our entire platform around enabling communication around email and text. And what happens is our system is going to parse all of that information and give the managers a really nice dashboard that says "We recognize who this person is, they emailed in, and we're going to make that task automatically for you." So we're really kind of short-cutting some of those steps between if someone emails you today, you have to go look it up. Right? Which property they're in, who they're with, their history, and then you have to go and create that ticket. We do all of that automatically.  [00:10:11] Jason: Got it. So maybe to showcase this audibly, why don't you walk us through an example scenario involving all the parties and how it's facilitating the communication. [00:10:22] Lindsay: Sure. Let's take a really common one. Someone's got a leak, right? And they think it's the most urgent thing in the world, right? So what they would do if they are using Super, is the resident would either email or text the dedicated phone number that property has. So let's say, you know, I don't know, 1 23 HOA , right? Is going to email and say, "I have a leak in my unit." They don't even have to say, "I'm in unit one A or whatever." We recognize who that user is and we're automatically going to create the task in Super. For the resident, what's going to happen is because they emailed it in, we will automatically send them the confirmation, acknowledging receipt as well, and say, "Hey, we got this," and it will automatically be assigned to the property manager that is responsible for that. That property manager, right, will then get notified that they have a new task that's been assigned to them and they can go in and they can say, "okay, maybe I need to reassign this to the Super that's on staff, right, to go and take a look at this. Or maybe I need to bring in an external vendor, right? I maybe I need the plumbing company to come by and see if this is happening from something that we knew was happening with the toilet upstairs, above that unit," right? [00:11:29] So they can then bring in the appropriate parties and liaise with all of them within the platform. They can also update the resident within there. So they could just write back and kind of say, "Hey, we're on this. Don't worry, I'm going to send somebody out right now." And that resident's going to get an immediate paper trail of all of that communication. As soon as this issue is resolved, if the management team marks it as done, the resident's going to get feedback saying, this task has been marked as complete. So we're really closing those feedback loops, making sure that that communication, right, any of those gaps where we can automate with technology, we're using technology to do that. So it's just going to save you those minutes every single day on those repetitive types of emails and communication that have to be made so that you can just move on to doing something else with your day. [00:12:14] Jason: Okay, now what you described is like a really cool maintenance coordination tool. Right? So it's helping to coordinate maintenance. Does Super go beyond maintenance coordination, or is that-- [00:12:25] Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely, and this is where things start to get really exciting, right? So think about in that homeowner's association example, you have a board, they have to run regular board meetings. They have the annual owners meeting. We have templates that allow them to support that governance. So think about a task. There's a certain type of task, right? That is just about board meetings and owners meetings. And so what we'll do is we'll create that schedule for them. We'll set a preset agenda. They can update that at any time. They can add all of the board members to it. And then once those minutes are in there, they use that right to log the discussion that they had and next steps. That is saved, and you don't even have to go and create a separate minutes document. It's already there for you to go and look at over time. [00:13:07] For board members, we also have things like quick polling. So if you need to make a decision on something. I don't know about you, but the times that I've been on boards you're, you know, making a decision on an email thread that's already 70 emails deep, and by the time someone says, "Hey, can you all decide on this?" someone chimes in with something else, and suddenly you're talking better than a topic, and three weeks later, no decision has been made. So we're really trying to make everything very actionable and it's just, you know, it's the fact that if email is the most prevalent tool you're using, it's just not the right tool for creating actionable conversations, right? And so we're trying to build that tooling into a platform that is purpose-built for property management. We also have tools around, obviously all of your file management documentation and storage. That's I think, another challenge with email is you have turnover, you have, you know, for instance, board members that leave and all of that historical information today goes with them. [00:14:00] I'm still getting emails from boards that I was on years ago being like, "Hey, do you remember that vendor that we used for that thing? Do you happen to have that contract somewhere? You can look for it." That should never be something that happens with good governance of a building, right? So we centralize and store all of that information on behalf of the buildings. We help them keep their contact directories really nice and clean and updated. And then we have a whole finances component as well where we help them visualize these really simple real-time dashboards for what's going on with the association's health, how much are they taking in, how much are they spending every single month? You can kind of look at that throughout the year, dive into transactions, and then the next thing we'll be rolling out is the ability to accept and receive those monthly payments as well.  [00:14:45] Jason: Okay. Very cool. All right, so the two, it sounds like so far, I don't know if there's anything else, but the two big components of this are maintenance, coordination, and then the HOA governance and board meetings and documentation, storage and dashboards. [00:15:02] Lindsay: Yeah, I mean, if I think about the things that I wish I had as a board member in my previous-- and I've been on the board of three condos at this point, so I'm just pulling from those personal experiences. I wish that I had a way-- what was that?  [00:15:14] Jason: You're a brave person or a glutton for punishment. I don't know. There's a-- [00:15:18] Lindsay: I know  [00:15:19] Jason: --individual that chooses be on a board of an association.  [00:15:22] Lindsay: Well, you know, it's funny because the first time I joined, I remember a friend of mine being like, he was on the board of his co-op. He was like, "don't do it. Just don't do it. Like you're never going to have a life when you go home." And I was like, "I just feel like I'm really able to solve problems and I'm a really proactive person." then I got on and now I'm that person that tells people, I'm like, "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Like, good luck. Good luck to you," so when I think about the thing that I really wish that I had, right, it was that communication piece. I wanted more transparency and visibility into what the property manager was doing, the decisions that were being made, how things were going overall. I wanted that into our building's finances as well, right? How are we doing as far as our targets for what we wanted to be spending from an operating perspective versus how we are tracking? Do we need to think about doing things like raising the fees? Do we need to do things like leverage a special assessment, right? That type of planning. I really wish we had more visibility and transparency into that. Absolutely wish that we just had better governance around the documents, the history of the building, decisions that have been made previously, and tools to help us just operate in a healthier way as well. So we've really built around those cornerstones of what we think are the, kind of the building blocks, the foundation of what a healthy building. [00:16:36] Jason: Okay. Very cool. This sounds really great. So if people have a property management business and they're managing a large building, a multi-family building, and they're dealing with some of this drama, this would be a great tool for them to systematize things, bring the communication together, deal with some of the maintenance coordination, approvals communication transparency, and then also making sure that the meeting stuff is all held in one place. And I would imagine if property managers are implementing this, then this probably is a really great selling point for these property managers that are doing this work that they have this repository that's been built up with the association's help. [00:17:19] Lindsay: Absolutely. I think. When I think about what makes the property management industry so challenging, and I'm sure you have a point of view on this as well it really is time is your biggest premium, right? It is a very manual and people oriented set of tasks, right, that need to be done. And at the end of the day, what are people best for? Dealing with the human side of things, right? The kind of complex logic, the decisioning that needs to go into making sure that this group of people are happy and functioning. That's like totally something that you need a person to be able to manage. And so where can we come in? We can come in and help them with all of the other type of administrative, repetitive work that is not as high value from a people perspective, but is definitely very high value from an operational perspective, right? So where can we help streamline that? And I think that's a value proposition that resonates time and time again. If we say, I can save you minutes every single day on these 10 types of tasks, right? That ladders up to hours at the end of a week that you are saving and on top of that, your residents feel happier, you're going to have more stickiness and retention. These are things that will help the bottom line of a business.  [00:18:29] Jason: Now, I imagine when it comes to associations utilizing a software like this, rather than the property manager, so the property manager would just build this into their fee structure, I would imagine it's part of their services. They can say, "we have this cool tool and system." and they have an advantage because otherwise the association board members, there's always going to be the negative person that's going to try and like say, "Hey, we don't want to spend all this money on this technology or this software. Somebody can do this and we can figure it out ourselves." And how do you deal with that? [00:19:03] Lindsay: Yeah. You know what's interesting is even though we don't specifically target the individual board members in HOAs, we get a lot of inbound from them. [00:19:12] Jason: Yeah.  [00:19:12] Lindsay: People reaching out saying, "I really wish there was a better way. And so if anything, that gives me signal that the residents and the board members are looking for tools. They're looking for a better way to do things. And I think this is, when I think about technology in general and what's happening even in the enterprise space, we've been talking about this consumerization of IT, right? If I can get a Task Rabbit to come and fix a thing for me within 20 minutes and I can know every step of the way, and the payment's just settled, why can't I have that in every other aspect of my life? Why does that have to be so difficult when it comes to getting a plumbing repair done in my apartment? Right? That's the frame of reference that the resident is using is, well, I can get a card just to my door in five minutes with Uber. Like, why is this so difficult? I think more and more we're going to see that is the emerging expectation of residents. They're going to have these high expectations. They're going to expect things to just kind of feel like magic. And so the technology is a great differentiator, if anything, for these property management companies who say, "yeah we're with you on that, and we've already built that into our workflows." [00:20:16] Jason: Yeah. Got it. Cool. So I see on your website you have pricing for associations and for vendors, but really it sounds like you're just targeting people that are managing their own building. And that would be either they own the building and they are the property manager, they're an owner operator or people that are doing third party management. Is that accurate?  [00:20:37] Lindsay: Yeah, that's right, and I think, you know, we're an interesting tool for those that are more on the self-managed side of things, right? So if you're kind of on that cusp of I need some help, we don't take in enough dues to be able to support hiring a property manager. The software is a great solution for that, right? Where it can come in, it can help you take care of, again, a lot of that administrative, operational stuff give you the peace of mind that we've got your back on the main things that you have to get done. And we'll be a fraction of the price of a management company. The audience that we're really focused on building and kind of finding mutual success with, I think is the property management companies though, because at the end of the day, they are the ones that are responsible for just, you know, some of the companies that we work with and talk to, you know, thousands of units and thousands of doors, right? Where that isn't something that we can help find just even greater scale of efficiency with them. And that's great for our business as well, right? To be dealing with one core customer that's highly motivated to pull this into their business and to find the results of it. [00:21:40] Jason: Yeah. So even you would rather deal with one company instead of death by committee. [00:21:46] Lindsay: Learning from the past. We're growing and evolving here.  [00:21:49] Jason: Okay. Cool. Any other major questions that people might or usually ask about this software, about your technology that you want to make them aware of here on the podcast? [00:22:00] Lindsay: Sure. I think one thing that we hear quite a bit is: "how is this different from..." right? because there are other tools out there. I think one of the things that I would say is we're building for 2020 to 2023 even. Right? So we're really trying to bring best in class technology and engineering practices, thinking deeply about things like security, right? Like you've got information about where people live, about their roles in the building, about if they have kids and right all of their history here. That is really, really important actually, that you have a team that is thinking about the best practices for this modern age, where you've just got more and more kind of threats from a cybersecurity and digital perspective. So I would say that's kind of just one thing is just building best in class. Building from the ground up. And I think what we're also doing is we're really learning from all of those past experiences. We're learning from what has worked and we're also learning from what hasn't worked. We're trying to take a very user-centric approach there. And so even with our customers right now, I would say we are always co-creating. They have space to come and tell us what do they want in the roadmap? We feed that back to them. We kind of say, "here's the things we're thinking about," and we are shipping new things every single week. And that's like a really exciting time for us to be in where every single week there's something new to kind of go to a customer and say, "Hey, we now have this. We now have this." And it's a very rich and exciting roadmap ahead. So I think, you know, it's only going to get more exciting as we get into the next year and the beyond.  [00:23:25] Jason: Very cool. So some people might look at the pricing that might go, "you know, I don't know if we can afford this." How do you help people justify the cost? [00:23:34] Lindsay: Yep. There's a few ways, right? So one of the key offerings that we have for New York City buildings specifically, and that's where I'm based and half of our team is based out here, is there's a lot of compliance work that needs to be done. So inspections, filings, just, you know, disclosures that need to be sent. And I just think there's a level of need to stay on top of that in New York City that is just even higher than other places. Even especially, you know, there's new laws rolling up for energy efficiency standards, right? New regulation that really adds a lot of extra layers of complexity. So one of the things that we have done is we've automated those compliance workflows. So we actually can look backwards sometimes, see when you last did a certain inspection and give you a reminder automatically for the next time it's due. So that value prop is really simple. The cost of an average violation, we're probably going to be less than that. So if we can save you that money and that time and that headache dealing with it then that's a really clear one.  [00:24:29] For the property managers, I think it really does come down to we're saving you time. I talked to a boutique management company. This week and the owner operator was like, you know, "minimum wage is going up and with inflation and what's happening in the economy right now, I don't know that I can justify to my customers like they're not going to accept a rate increase, but my costs are going up, right?" I think that's a very real thing right now. And so for these teams to be able to operate with the quality of service they want to continue to maintain and to be able to do so in an environment economically where there's some constriction, there's a lot of sensitivity I think from the residents around price, right? Even on the rental side, just the cost of rent has skyrocketed. And there's just a lot of different factors there. If we can provide you with the way to be able to scale the number of customers that you can take on without having to increase headcount, that's a huge value add for your business. And so those are the types of conversations that I'm really excited to be having with management teams where there's a very clear value exchange of the ability for us to help them build their business and to be there alongside them for that. [00:25:35] Jason: Cool. So it's fair to say if somebody has a multi-unit building, they probably should talk to you guys. [00:25:42] Lindsay: Absolutely. You said it here, so thank you for that. [00:25:46] Jason: It sounds like you're doing some really innovative things, collapsing time, helping to systemize things. It sounds like it fills kind of a unique sort of gap in the marketplace between property management software and you know, what multi-unit buildings and associations over those buildings need and require. You know, the big challenge with associations though is the pet drama, like pets poop in places. Like that's the real stuff right there. That and packages, right? Those are-- [00:26:15] Lindsay: the packages... huge. Especially this time of year. That's something that I tell you, you know, I'm so glad we have such an amazing technology team. We want to figure something out there, because right now the only package scanning apps work. If you have full-time staff, right? If you have a porter there to actually scan the thing for you. So there's something interesting there that we're definitely trying to figure out. So maybe we can talk about that in the future. [00:26:36] Jason: That'll be a future episode.  [00:26:38] Lindsay: Exactly.  [00:26:39] Jason: You've got the pet poop and the packages.  [00:26:42] Lindsay: I first heard about the doggy testing kits like years ago. it was a thing in one of the condos I was on the board of, I was like, whose pet is on the stairwell--  [00:26:52] a database of dog dna, pet DNA inside of your software [00:26:57] See? That feels like priority number one. We'll get on that. [00:27:02] Jason: That's funny. Cool. Well I appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks for coming and sharing this technology with the DoorGrowShow audience. And I wish you success.  [00:27:13] Lindsay: Thank you so much and thanks for having me on. Our website is hiresuper.com. H I R E S U P E R.  [00:27:22] Jason: Perfect. Cool. Check out hiresuper.com if you have a multi-family building. All right, thank you, Lindsay.  [00:27:29] Lindsay: Awesome. Thanks, Jason.  [00:27:30] Jason: All right, so everybody go check out Hire Super. And we appreciate you listening to our show. Please like and subscribe if you're following us on some channels that'll allow you to do that. And please leave us some positive feedback and review. We'd appreciate it greatly. And check us out at DoorGrow. If you're wanting to grow your business, we highly recommend if you are in the single family residential space, check out our DoorGrow Code. Talk to our team and find out about the DoorGrow Code, which is the journey for an entrepreneur going from zero to a thousand plus doors. And until next time, to our mutual growth. Bye, everyone.  [00:28:05] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:28:32] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Moms will do anything for their kids…and Susie Carder is no exception. A single mom of two daughters, Susie was struggling to make ends meet as a hairdresser. Determined to give them (and herself) the best life possible, she got on the “whatever it takes plan.” Little did she know this plan would soon turn into 5 multi-million-dollar companies and two 10 million+ dollar businesses. We discuss how Susie's sales & business strategies allowed her to scale her businesses to exponential success. Recently featured in The New York Times, Forbes Magazine, and the Associated Press, Susie Carder is the creator of radical business strategies that have helped thousands of entrepreneurs achieve exponential growth and triple their profits. She is the creator of 10 organizations and the author of Power your Profit. Currently, Susie coaches small business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs in professional management and efficiency to streamline channels of profit for companies. Previously, Susie was president and COO of Motivating the Masses, Inc., an international transformation and training company for small business owners led by Lisa Nichols.  Tune in to hear Susie's amazing story… 1:08 – Susie's story from hairdresser to owner of two 10-million-dollar businesses 4:45 – How Susie created a 7-figure launch during the pandemic (+ you can too!) 6:18 – Why 98% of businesses never hit 7 figures… 7:50 – You're not charging enough! (And getting the plan on paper) 9:11 – Who is your ideal qualified candidate? 11:27 – Stop marketing to your fans… 13:19 – Being accountable to the numbers… This is how you price your services! 15:15 – Summary of Susie's Steps: Step 1 -Getting the Plan on Paper; Step 2 Finding Ideal Qualified Candidates; Step 3 – Being accountable to the numbers 15:53 – How managing units (not dollars) is the key to 7 figures 17:39 – Steal Susie's sales script! 19:48 – You're making it too hard… But the details still matter 23:15 – Favorite tool for business (Trello); Favorite Book (Hook Point by Brendan Cane) Resources: Connect with Susie Carder… Facebook: @SusieCarder Instagram: @susiecarder Website: SusieCarder.com (Find Susie's book Power Your Profit here) Click link for book and receive $5k in bonuses: Including Susie's Cash Calculator & Financial Tool for Projections Susie's Favorite Book: Hook Point by Brendan Cane Susie's Favorite Tool: Trello ————————- If you enjoyed this episode, please RATE / REVIEW and SUBSCRIBE to ensure you never miss an episode. Connect with Dennis Brown  AskDennisBrown.com LinkedIn Twitter Instagram [Free Giveaways]

In the first official episode of season 4 of the Resilient by Design Podcast, I'm joined by 2 powerhouse women, Abagail Humphrey & Emylee Williams, in a riveting conversation where we cover it all and then some. Abagail, Emylee, and I share a passion for systems and processes and we talk all about growing your business in an internal and smart way. This incredible conversation covers a large gamut of business topics, while Abagail and Emylee share a realistic approach to growing a business while taking into consideration the economy we find ourselves in. If you're looking to grow your business but you're thinking, “the world is changing shouldn't affect me”… well, this episode is for you! About Abagail & Emylee Abagail and Emylee are the business fairy godmothers behind Boss Project and the hosts of the chart-topping podcast, The Strategy Hour. They're internet-famous for their program, Trello for Business, which breaks down boring and complicated systems into bite-size chunks. They have helped over 10k creative small business owners create simplicity and ease in reaching their goals. After getting their start in 2015 serving clients in the marketing and branding space, they now help other service-based business owners reignite their offer, create systems for client experience, and get more of their time back into their program, The Incubator. The team at Boss Project is truly revitalizing the service-based industry through strategies that don't require flashy marketing, a huge audience, or full-time hours.   During the conversation, we got into all things economic times along with the power of having a core service offering and how this can help you gain new and returning clients. These two women have an incredible knack for understanding the power of systems and really communicating the importance of that in your business and your sales focus. We dive into the distinction between repeat and brand-new clients, and share how investing in repeat clients will give you the most bang for your buck.  There are so many more topics in this episode like, regularly increasing your rates so that you can pay for everything but still remain profitable, focusing on your client, having front and back-end offerings, and much more.  You'll definitely want to take notes on this one or give listen to it a couple of times to catch all of the juicy nuggets. If you want to connect with Abagail and Emylee, you can visit their website at www.bossproject.com or tune into their amazing podcast, Strategy Hour. As always I'm curious what you think of this episode and what resonates with you, so send me a DM on Instagram or join our Designer Meet-up Facebook Group! If you're looking for ways to generate a quick infusion of cash, check out our newest resource, here.

What does it mean to take a journalistic approach to your podcast content? In this episode of Podcraft, we're joined by Katie, who is the driving force behind our new topical content offerings. Katie explains that a "journalistic approach" involves taking time to research your subjects and using a structured workflow to build stories. Some of the tips and suggestions here include using newsletters and Google Alerts as a way to source stories and using Trello boards and spreadsheets to organize content and ideas. When it comes to fact-checking and sourcing stories, Katie recommends using multiple sources and tracing back to the original source. She also talks about the importance of citing sources, and how to contact people for comment and quotes. Finally, Katie and Matthew discuss the importance of considering what value the content will provide to listeners. They suggest using the acronym WIIFM (What's In It For Me) to help stay focused on providing value to listeners.

Happy New Year, Nerds! The Nerd Best Friends reflect on their 22 for 2022 goals and gamify their boards and goals for 2023. Rob is bringing sexy back with some exercise goals and Analese finally succumbs to being a mini paint nerd. CALL TO ACTION: (1) create your 23 for 2023 and let us know by sharing on social media with #2023nerdgoals, (2) share your progress over the year when you complete a goal with the same hashtag, (3) gamify your goals for this year! OTHER NERDY TOPICS: Micro-dungeons, Board Game Stats app, mini painting, Folklore the Affliction, Hero Quest, Do the Bartman, Trello boards, Netflix's Wednesday, Tim Burton, the 1990s as flashbacks in entertainment now. @NerdBestFriends is our social media, podcast@nerdbestfriends.com is our email - message us today! Follow and like our stuff, it'll be fun, we SWEAR! VISIT OUR WEBSITE and tip your nerd best friends! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nerd-best-friends/support

Let me set a scene for you. You're at work. It's 2:00 and you haven't sat down all day, haven't had a chance to unpack your bag from that morning, and yet you still haven't checked anything off of your to-do list. Sound familiar? I'm sure it does! As school counselors we are hit with emergencies, pop-up meetings, and so many other things that take us away from our original plans. While all of these things come with the job, there are habits and tools that you can put in place to reduce your overwhelm and increase efficiency.  Our guest today, Alaina Schrader, has spent years discovering productivity hacks that have changed her life and she's here to share them with you!  PS: Don't forget to sign up for the Reset for Success Challenge! You can grab your game board here. You could be the winner of a Counselor Clique tumbler, $50 TPT gift card, and custom sticker pack! Resources Mentioned: Download your game board here! Sign up for my free, live workshop: Three Practical Ways to Bring your High School Counseling Program Back to Life in the New Year Podcast: The 5 AM Miracle Podcast: The Productivity Show Book: Getting Things Done, by David Allen  @haleywynndesigns Canva Loom TextExpander Task Managers: Todoist, Asana, Trello, Monday, AirTable, Google Keep Leave your review for High School Counseling Conversations on Apple Podcasts Connect with Lauren: Join my email list and get the free Data Collection Ideas Guide for High School Counselors Visit my TpT store Send me a DM on Instagram: @counselorclique Follow me on Facebook Send me an email Get on the waitlist for the Clique Collaborative Full show notes on website: https://counselorclique.com/episode56 

Épisode 898 : Dans cet épisode on vous donne les clés pour lancer un programme d'employee Advocacy Linkedin de manière réaliste et activable facilement !C'est l'une des clés si vous souhaitez faire émerger votre marque sur Linkedin. Jouez l'effet de d'équipe ! C'est quoi l'employee advocacy ?L'employee Advocacy, c'est quand une entreprise communique par le biais de ses employés avec leur participation.

L'idée là, c'est donc de mobiliser et de fédérer les forces vives en interne pour diffuser mes messages et parler de mon entreprise.
Dans ce cas mes employés jouent le rôle d'ambassadeurs, d'influenceurs.Les employés ont bien souvent des réseaux professionnels ou personnels d'ailleurs bien fournis et qui partagent les mêmes centres d'intérêts, ont les mêmes préoccupations qu'eux.Il s'agit de campagnes de sensibilisation destinés à mobiliser et responsabiliser les employés pour qu'ils deviennent ambassadeurs de leur entreprise sur les réseaux sociaux.Il ne s'agit pas de liker tous les posts de la boite ou du patron. C'est bien plus intéressant que ça.—A quoi ça sert de lancer un programme d'employee advocacy sur Linkedin ?Voici quelques raisons pour lesquelles lancer un programme d'ambassadeurs sur LinkedIn peut être bénéfique :
Ca augmente la visibilité de ma marque : En confiant à vos collaborateurs la responsabilité de partager du contenu sur les réseaux sociaux, vous pouvez atteindre un public plus large et bénéficier d'une portée accrue pour votre marque.Ca renforce la perception de marque en ramenant de l'humain : Vos employés sont vos meilleurs ambassadeurs et peuvent aider à promouvoir votre entreprise de manière authentique et crédible.Cela peut vous aider à générer des leads : en encourageant vos employés à partager du contenu sur les réseaux sociaux, vous pouvez générer des leads qualifiés.Ca aide aussi à recruter des talentsEncourager les employés à parler de l'entreprise pour laquelle ils travaillent peut encourager un excellent candidat à postuler.
L'employee advocacy a aussi pour mérite de renforcer la loyauté de vos employés : En confiant à vos employés la responsabilité de partager du contenu sur les réseaux sociaux, vous pouvez renforcer leur loyauté envers votre entreprise. Cela peut être particulièrement utile si vous souhaitez fidéliser vos employés et les inciter à rester dans votre entreprise.
———3 mois pour lancer un programme d'employee advocacy qui cartonneEtape 1 : Constituer un panel testSélectionner les ambassadeurs avec soin : il est important de choisir des employés qui ont une présence active sur LinkedIn et qui sont passionnés par leur métier.mail aux collaborateurs pour expliquer et savoir qui aimerait participer. C'est aussi l'occasion de rappeler les avantages pour le salariés)On met en place un google form que tout le monde peut remplir avec quelques infos (nb relations - métier - fréquence d'utilisation de linkedin - aisance avec la plateforme)Sélection d'une équipe réduite de 5-6 profilsprévoir un chef de projet qui effectuera le suivi et gèrera la partie éditoriale—Etape 2 : Une réunion pour fixer les enjeux et les règles du jeuMettre en place en commun des règles du jeu claires et que chacun s'engage à respecter.Poser un cadre à la campagne d'employee advocacy :

Durée de l'activation
Adopter un profil charté ?
Fréquence de publication - type de contenus - provenance des contenus...
Poser des guidelines > do - don't
—
Etape 3 : Un atelier de travail pour co construire la ligne éditorialeC'est bien beau mais on publie quoi ?Il est recommandé d'organiser une ligne éditoriale pour le programme d'ambassadeurs sur LinkedIn, afin de s'assurer que le contenu publié par les collaborateurs est cohérent avec les objectifs de l'entreprise et les valeurs qu'elle souhaite promouvoir.Il faut aussi laisser une certaine flexibilité aux collaborateurs pour leur permettre de partager du contenu qui leur tient à coeur et qui reflète leur expertise et leur personnalité. On part des piliers de contenu de la marque mais aussi des temps forts de l'année à venir.—Etape 4 : Mâcher le travail aux ambassadeurs pour s'assurer de la réussite du programmeIl est important d'encourager les ambassadeurs à participer activement au programme en leur proposant du contenu intéressant à partager et en leur donnant les moyens de le faire.Mâchez leur le travail en tenant à jour un Trello avec des visuels clés et des messages important à relayer.—Etape 5 : Des points de suivis réguliers avec l'équipe projetRéunion débrief tous les 15 jours pour partage des bonnes pratiques. Réunion mensuelle sur la performance pour choix éditorial—Next Steps ?étendre à un panel plus large
étendre à une entité de l'entreprise par exemple en fonction du besoin (les créa, les commerciaux (obvious), les Rh..)
définir les objectifs long terme—Les employés aussi ont a y gagnerVoici quelques avantages pour les collaborateurs de participer à un programme d'ambassadeurs sur LinkedIn :Développer leur réseau professionnel : en partageant du contenu sur leur profil LinkedIn, les collaborateurs peuvent développer leur réseau professionnel et échanger avec d'autres professionnels de leur domaine.
Renforcer leur crédibilité : en partageant du contenu de qualité sur LinkedIn, les collaborateurs peuvent renforcer leur crédibilité auprès de leurs contacts professionnels et être perçus comme des experts dans leur domaine.
Etre acteur de la réussite de sa boite : en suivant le programme d'ambassadeurs de l'entreprise sur LinkedIn, les collaborateurs peuvent rester informés des dernières actualités et évolutions de l'entreprise et de leur domaine d'expertise.
En somme, participer à un programme d'ambassadeurs sur LinkedIn peut être bénéfique pour les collaborateurs à plusieurs niveaux : professionnel, personnel et éducatif.—. . . Le Super Daily est le podcast quotidien sur les réseaux sociaux. Il est fabriqué avec une pluie d'amour par les équipes de Supernatifs.Nous sommes une agence social media basée à Lyon : https://supernatifs.com/. Ensemble, nous aidons les entreprises à créer des relations durables et rentables avec leurs audiences. Ensemble, nous inventons, produisons et diffusons des contenus qui engagent vos collaborateurs, vos prospects et vos consommateurs.

When it comes to running an e-commerce business, it's easy to get overwhelmed with all the tasks that need to be done. One solution to help manage the workload is to hire virtual assistants (VA). A VA is a professional who provides support services remotely, typically online. They can take care of a variety of tasks, including customer service, managing social media accounts, data entry, and more. Time Stamps [03:00:12] Creating Job Descriptions [07:36:79] Onboarding Issues : Mistakes When Recruiting [13:31:56] VAs Leaving Under Distress [19:43:80] The Superman Syndrome [21:39:58] The VAA Philippines However, managing remote teams and Virtual Assistants can present its own set of challenges. Here are some mistakes to avoid when hiring and working with a VA: Not having clear job descriptions: Before hiring Virtual Assistants, it's important to have a clear understanding of what tasks and responsibilities you want them to handle. This includes creating documentation like job descriptions to ensure that both parties are on the same page. Not looking for specific skills and experience: If you're hiring a VA for a specific task, such as managing your PPC campaigns, it's essential to look for someone with relevant experience and skills. For example, a PPC VA should have experience with analyzing data and optimizing campaigns. Not providing upfront tasks and training: It's important to provide your VA with a clear understanding of what they will be trained on and the hours of work expected. A clear contract, including an NDA, should also be in place to protect both parties. Not properly verifying the VA's identity and location: It's important to ensure that the VA you are working with is who they say they are, and to verify their location. This can be done by getting their identification and other personal information. Letting VAs feel isolated: Even though everything is done online, it's still important to invest in creating a sense of community with your VA. This can include holding actual meetings, celebrating birthdays, and participating in events in their location (if applicable). Feeling the need to create a book of SOPs: It can be tempting to want to create a book of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for your VA to follow, but this can be a mistake. Instead, show your VA the responsibilities and tasks they will be handling, and provide training and support. You can even record the training sessions for them to refer back to. This will allow them to create their own SOPs as they become more familiar with the work. Not having a schedule of work: It's important to create a schedule for your VA to follow, so they can work independently without constant supervision. This can include tasks like checking listings for issues, managing PPC campaigns, and checking inventory. Not having reports: Set up a system for your VA to report to you on a daily or weekly basis. This can include what tasks they completed, any achievements or problems they encountered, and the hours they worked. Tools like Asana, Trello, and email can be used for this purpose. Not having a communication structure or regular meetings: It's important to have regular communication and meetings with your VA to ensure that everything is running smoothly and to address any issues that may arise. Suffering from the "Superman Syndrome": It's common for e-commerce business owners to try to do everything themselves when they first start out. However, as the business grows, it's important to delegate tasks to VAs and other team members to ensure that everything is being taken care of. Neglecting tasks like shipments, supplier management, and customer service can lead to problems down the line. Resources Schedule a call with Gilad at VAAphilippines.com  To learn more about getting a VA, reach out to VAA Philippines at the email service@VAAphilippines.com

When it comes to running an e-commerce business, it's easy to get overwhelmed with all the tasks that need to be done. One solution to help manage the workload is to hire virtual assistants (VA). A VA is a professional who provides support services remotely, typically online. They can take care of a variety of tasks, including customer service, managing social media accounts, data entry, and more. Time Stamps [03:00:12] Creating Job Descriptions [07:36:79] Onboarding Issues : Mistakes When Recruiting [13:31:56] VAs Leaving Under Distress [19:43:80] The Superman Syndrome [21:39:58] The VAA Philippines However, managing remote teams and Virtual Assistants can present its own set of challenges. Here are some mistakes to avoid when hiring and working with a VA: Not having clear job descriptions: Before hiring Virtual Assistants, it's important to have a clear understanding of what tasks and responsibilities you want them to handle. This includes creating documentation like job descriptions to ensure that both parties are on the same page. Not looking for specific skills and experience: If you're hiring a VA for a specific task, such as managing your PPC campaigns, it's essential to look for someone with relevant experience and skills. For example, a PPC VA should have experience with analyzing data and optimizing campaigns. Not providing upfront tasks and training: It's important to provide your VA with a clear understanding of what they will be trained on and the hours of work expected. A clear contract, including an NDA, should also be in place to protect both parties. Not properly verifying the VA's identity and location: It's important to ensure that the VA you are working with is who they say they are, and to verify their location. This can be done by getting their identification and other personal information. Letting VAs feel isolated: Even though everything is done online, it's still important to invest in creating a sense of community with your VA. This can include holding actual meetings, celebrating birthdays, and participating in events in their location (if applicable). Feeling the need to create a book of SOPs: It can be tempting to want to create a book of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for your VA to follow, but this can be a mistake. Instead, show your VA the responsibilities and tasks they will be handling, and provide training and support. You can even record the training sessions for them to refer back to. This will allow them to create their own SOPs as they become more familiar with the work. Not having a schedule of work: It's important to create a schedule for your VA to follow, so they can work independently without constant supervision. This can include tasks like checking listings for issues, managing PPC campaigns, and checking inventory. Not having reports: Set up a system for your VA to report to you on a daily or weekly basis. This can include what tasks they completed, any achievements or problems they encountered, and the hours they worked. Tools like Asana, Trello, and email can be used for this purpose. Not having a communication structure or regular meetings: It's important to have regular communication and meetings with your VA to ensure that everything is running smoothly and to address any issues that may arise. Suffering from the "Superman Syndrome": It's common for e-commerce business owners to try to do everything themselves when they first start out. However, as the business grows, it's important to delegate tasks to VAs and other team members to ensure that everything is being taken care of. Neglecting tasks like shipments, supplier management, and customer service can lead to problems down the line. Resources Schedule a call with Gilad at VAAphilippines.com  To learn more about getting a VA, reach out to VAA Philippines at the email service@VAAphilippines.com

In this episode of See You at Work, we sit down with Stella Garber, an entrepreneur, angel investor, public speaker and advisor to early-stage tech companies and venture funds. Previously, Stella led the marketing team at project management tool Trello for over seven years, building out the company's strategy and leading them through a $425 million acquisition by Atlassian. As someone who literally wrote the book on effective strategies for managing remote teams, Stella has plenty of wisdom to share for leaders who are looking to support and uplift their remote, distributed and asynchronous colleagues. She explains why she's always been a big advocate for the remote and distributed work lifestyle, and how teams can stay bonded and tight-knit—despite physical separation. Stella also shares her perspective on asynchronous communication, including why she believes it's going to be the next major trend in the workforce.