6 Tools that we use in everyday business

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”3.22″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.5.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.5.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_code _builder_version=”4.5.3″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″]

[/et_pb_code][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.5.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.5.3″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.5.3″ _module_preset=”default”]

Transcript

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.25″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″]

0:00 Hey guys, I’m Brooks and I’m Mandee. So we’re husband and wife, entrepreneurs. And we believe that life and business are a giant adventure and we want to live it with you guys.

0:11 So let’s get to it.

0:25 Hey guys, welcome back. In this episode, we’re going to talk about our top three productivity tools that we like couldn’t live without.

0:33 Yeah, I think mine are a little bit more simple than yours are. But we’ll see.

0:37 Whatever simple not simple. She’s all about, like, whatever is our favorite. Yeah, yes. What’s the most important thing about us? You want to go first?

0:46 I can go first. Yeah. So, so simple, because I don’t really need a lot of really in depth fancy tools to do what I do. So one of the bigger things that I have come across in the last couple of years I learned about it don’t know how I stumbled upon But Canva Canva is for sure the number one thing that I use when I am creating ads or if I’m creating flyers or postcards or anything like that, you can pretty much do anything with Canvas. So if you’re not familiar with it Canvas calm, you basically can become your own designer. And it’s a little tricky to kind of get started, but you get to play around and it gives you everything that you need. But

1:31 I will say the learning curve, though, is totally short. Like it’s really, even though you’re saying a little tricky that in 10 minutes or less, you’ll be like an intermediate user of him.

1:43 Yeah, and they have templates that you can use and if you’re completely new to graphic design or creating anything like that, this is not you know, word where you insert file and add some texts and it’s a completely different thing. So yeah, super easy learning curve, but there is there’s a little learning to do. Playing around little clicking around that you have to do.

2:02 And on that note, so like, if I had a list of five like him, that would be a mine as well. But like so really cool about canva. So I find that people a lot of times you say Oh, like yeah, did you design that you design yourself? And people say, well, like, yeah, you know, I just create on Canva I’m like, Dude like you. Because it’s so much easier. I think people kind of discount Canva as like creating incredible designs. But in reality, what’s happened is Canva has made it so much more accessible for people that just have good taste or know what they want to pull that out of Canvas and make those creations and so you’re just not having to spend 50 man hours to learn how a product works. You can literally just hop in there and get go and turn out something really good. And then Holy moly, you know, now you’re a designer and so you know, I guess people kind of dumb it down but I think it’s an incredible product. If you haven’t heard of it, you should definitely check it out, for sure.

3:02 Totally agree. Yeah. And the second thing for me would be Google Docs. So in Google Docs, you can create word pages, you can create spreadsheets. It kind of has replaced Microsoft Office. For me, it does the same exact thing, we can share it so I can work on something and I can share it with Brooks, I can share it with our team. So that is one of the things that I use daily, I have my editor that can log in, and I can do something she can log in, immediately make some changes, and I know about them instantly. So that’s really cool. I like to have like to have some instant results like that. And then

3:37 well, go ahead. Okay, gonna say something else about Google Docs. Yeah.

3:41 Okay. So I was gonna add on Google Docs, is that like, another huge benefit, or what I find beneficial is that it’s, you know, obviously, it’s cloud storage, right? So if we were to lose our computer or whatever, or you go somewhere and you don’t have your laptop, where you just log into your Google account, you can literally access your files. That is in in Google Docs, right? kind of similar to like, Dropbox. I mean Dropbox does. And that’s not on our list. But of course, it’s also a great, great program for sharing files. The reason probably Google Docs is because we already use all the Google products. And so it’s kind of just as easy. And you can go in there. And, you know, not just all the files that we use, but also the Google Doc files, right, like so we use, you know, their what’s their Excel thing called sheets called Google Sheets, so that you know, Google Sheets and their docs, we use those formats for a lot of stuff that we have. And so it makes it probably easier just to go ahead and use their their product right. 100 Yeah, so that’s definitely that would be all mine as well. I had five but I only have three But anyway, so what’s your

4:45 name? So here’s where I get super simple and Brooks makes fun of me a little bit, but I have my reasons. So the I would say it’s almost the number one thing that I use on the daily It is my paper calendar. No fancy write a paper? Yeah, it is. And so I have learned that if I write something down, I am much more like able to remember it. And rather than if I pull my phone out and try to add it to a digital calendar, I don’t know we use our phones all day long, and with texting and emailing, and I just I don’t remember all of the things that I typed. And so writing for me is huge. And plus, I can bring it with me everywhere. I can flip open to a page, I can see a week at a time, I can see a month at a time and I can look a little further out. I don’t know digital just doesn’t do it for me. And Brooks and I have gone back and forth on this a million times. And he’s finally left me alone. And let me do do my thing. He’s tried to get me to share Google calendar on multiple occasions, but I just can’t do it. So but I get his Google Docs I mean Google Calendar alerts and all those things and I know what he’s got going on but he has no clue what I have going on. I guess that’s a problem trying to stay in the trying to stay in the dark.

6:00 Truth be told, truth be told, I don’t. It’s not the paper that I’m making fun of because you make fun of me because I have a list every day and I’m scratching off stuff. And it’s in my pocket. And I’m actually saving a box of like giant listings because I want to put it on a wall. Because I think I’d be really cool to make like a whole collage of all these lists every day that I make and scratch off. What my only concern is that I kind of I kind of laugh and we’re out somewhere and we’re trying to set a meeting or something. And they’re like, oh, what about this date night? Well, I don’t have my calendar. Oh, yeah, you’re right. Well, let me check my Google Calendar because it right because it syncs with you your paper, your paper calendar doesn’t sync anywhere. And so that’s kind of my point. If you lose it, it’s gone Google Calendar, I just log in and there it is.

6:43 So those are my down reasons but no, I I totally

6:45 agree

6:46 in paper and like the importance of paper and hand the paper and writing stuff down and reading it and and like you said, like, you remember things better if you’re writing down versus doing things digitally. So now on that front, total Totally agree with you. So

7:02 what are your three?

7:03 Alright, so I’m going to start off the tool of my life it’s probably my paper calendar is called Trello. So I’ve used a ton of organization apps over the last five to seven to eight years and Trello has just become a number one that’s T R E L L O it’s completely free. I can’t remember I got bought out by some large company a number of years ago but whatever, it’s still free. So every list or every project that I’m working on is inside of Trello so like I just pulled up my phone just to look at it real quick. So I mean planning business of like events so King Cake office in their Gulf Coast to Bizcon and event is in their biz kids, they’re all their own sections inside of Trello. Our entire business the mobile rundown, I track inside of their information for like for this podcast information for YouTube ideas and my YouTube channel for you. To me for teaching courses there. For our Airbnb rental business, I have an entire card everything is inside Trello for our franchise called cartridge world for our real estate company, and just my everyday to do list, it’s all inside of Trello. So it’s crazy, it’s super in depth, you can have teams and stuff that share where you can share and people can mark off stuff like when they do it this and that. I really don’t use that feature very much I try to share with people like, like Mandee, for example, my business partner, my Hey, I shared that Trello board with you. And yeah, people kind of use it, but I feel like most of the people around me aren’t using it as much as I do as a solo player. But I use the mess out of some trouble. You gotta do what works for you. You gotta do what works for you. Alright, so I’ll move to my number two, which is related. It’s in the Google world. It is Google Calendar. Yeah, to combat I guess Your paper calendar is my Google Calendar. So everything that we do whether personal or for different businesses is all on Google Calendar. So if the mobile rundown has something it has its own color code, you can share that specific calendar with a user. Our, for example, our Airbnb rental that we have. We have that the calendar syncs to our Google calendar so I can look and see when someone’s checking in checking out so that we can make sure that we have you know, the property clean, so huge for me Google Calendar, Anna, that you use that tool as well, right.

9:35 minimally Yes,

9:36 minimally okay. So you have it for like, kind of assess it. You can look and see what what we have going on or I haven’t going on, right you just don’t really put your stuff on there. Exactly. Okay. You don’t use it on a personal level. Fair enough. Alright, so I’ll move to my third tool. Third and final tool is it’s a website called up work. It was formerly called oDesk. But so Upwork as a freelancer websites You can hire people from literally all over the world to do different things. And so I have hired probably over the last five or six years, probably 20 or so different people if I just had to kind of estimate probably 20 or 30 different people so I’ve hired designers for, you know, creating logos and things like that. I’ve created web people to help with websites. I’ve built a number of websites myself, but if I there’s things that are just above my pay grade that don’t understand, I go and I find people that are experts in that field on Upwork I’ve hired writers I’ve hired assistance even a bookkeeper so really funny we’ve actually had the same bookkeeper for like five or six years it’s a guy that lives in Pakistan really nice guy like invited me to his wedding and if you know that

10:48 did not know that Yeah, so like why don’t we get

10:51 house like it’s in Pakistan man it’s kind of far for me but like I really appreciated him inviting me I thought was really cool that he thought enough of me to like invite me to his wedding I thought was really neat. So these people we hire are actually around the world, right? So it’s a global marketplace. You can get more, you know, quote unquote, more affordable rates internationally, right. So you can pay people less but in, in reality and their cost of living or it’s a lower cost, it could be a great pay for them. And so it’s kind of a win win is kind of a way that I see it.

11:21 I’ve been very impressed with how you have hired off of that side.

11:25 Yeah. So it’s a website that’s based with ratings. And so people are rated so you can go through and you can vet people really well. You can look at past job experience, you can look and see the feedback that they’ve gotten. Now you have to spend time to do that, right. You can’t just go out hire someone to expect to win, you have to kind of go through that process. Now Upwork has changed the way that they charge and Bill you that actually changed recently, probably because they turned into a giant company now where they’ve been growing over the years, but it’s still a tool that I use. It’s great. In fact, funny story, the designer, the logo design that’s designed like three different concepts for us for different projects that we have lives literally less than 30 minutes away from where we live, but I’ve never met this young lady and she designs one more thing for us I want to like take her out for coffee or take her out to lunch or something and meet her. But really neat. So I hired her on Upwork I just thought it was funny that she was in Alabama, right around the corner from us and had great reviews and so I hired her but I wouldn’t have found her otherwise that Yeah, like I wouldn’t have found her through any other like googling or anything but I found her directly on on upwork so so if you hadn’t heard of some of those tools, I’d say you know, some of them I’m sure you know about but if you haven’t, and they pique your interest. Definitely go and check them out. It may be a great tool for you for you to use for your for your business or for your life. Right? Yeah, should we give them any bonus tools are now just living with those six I mean, that’s probably good enough.

12:51 That’s good enough for now.

12:52 I good enough tools. Alright guys, thanks for tuning in. We look forward to catching you on the next episode.

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]