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Welcome to episode #101! We frequently get asked about how we run our business globally, both in doing business and in how to run a global team. This week we peel back the curtains to reveal how we manage and some tips we follow…
What did Andrew McCauley and Heather Porter learn this week?
Heather was reminded of how powerful Dynamic Widgets can be as a marketing tool. Basically it allows you to display “dynamic content” – content that is relevant to the person reading it. So if they are reading a blog post of yours on a certain topic, they will see banners for content or promotions that are related to the content they are looking at.
Andrew has been paying attention to the latest Google algorithm change, coming up on 21st April. This time around, mobile-friendliness is a focus, so you want to make sure your website is mobile-responsive! We wrote an in-depth blog post with tips you can follow – Why you MUST have a mobile-friendly website.
How to run a global team
First of all, what do we do?
We are a business automation agency and encompass the following things:
- Websites
- Marketing automation
- Content marketing
- Training
- Speaking/events
This means that we have a lot of moving parts to manage and need to have efficient systems for our global team.
Developing systems
We’ve found some great tools that work for us in managing our team.
- Trello – almost like a whiteboard! Create to-do lists, invite team members and share ideas. You can even colour-code based on importance and create a check-list for each card. We use this largely for daily to-dos and new lead follow-ups. It’s like the dashboard for seeing where everything is at.
- Process St – a checklist tool which we use to break-down entire processes. We have even included email templates so our project managers don’t have to think about writing an email for a certain step. It’s great for having an overview and knowing exactly what stage any project is at, while drilling down to the pieces that make up the big picture project.
- Basecamp – we use this to manage the project as a whole, share files and communicate with team members. Things like clients files and logins for website builds are an example. If you think about projects where the client may come back months down the track, it’s much easier to have that info all stored in one place rather than having to go through emails!
- Ontraport – we use this for email as well as monitoring payments for Digital Traffic Institute (our membership site).
- Xero – for invoice and accounting management. This program will even produce your reports for taxation.
- Zapier – set up rules. For example we have set up so that our project manager gets notified when there are new files added to certain Dropbox folders.
- Skype – for team meetings and calls, screen sharing and client calls.
Systematizing your business is one of the most crucial things you can do. It may take you some time in the beginning, but it will free up your time in the end! Any time you are finding that you repeat yourself is an opportunity to have a system in place…
Systems allow you to take better care of both your clients and your team as you will not be constantly chasing your own tail!