- Create a wishlist of what you'd want a CRM or Project Management platform to do for your business or a business you would like to be employed with in future.
- Have a Google based on that wishlist, and it's likely that Monday.com, Hubspot, Trello and other handy tools will come up.
- Do your research on which tool you think will do the majority of what you need, then sign up and test out the functionality. The ones mentioned in these videos are ClickUp, Toggl & Hubspot.
- Spend time getting to know all of them, their pricing, and their key features.
- These are some of the things you can test when you set up an account:
- Set up a board for a project - it might be an event or a piece of creative needed for a social campaign
- Set tasks needed to be completed & due dates
- Invite a team member into the board (this could be using another email address or another digital doer)
- Test inviting people to a board and setting tasks + sub-tasks
- Set up time tracking against that project
- Create & share documents
- Set up workflows and automation
- Prepare template emails
- Set up a chatbot and embed on your website
Add to your wishlist document and describe what you liked about the platforms you tested, and any limitations you found. Post your document to your thread in the Module 5 Practicals Forum.
Please Note: There are hundreds if not thousands of other CRM & Project Management tools like these. Here are a few other leaders:
We all pay attention to the cash flow in our business – what’s making us money, and what isn’t. But very few of us pay attention to how much WE cost our business. Your time can actually be your biggest expense, in the sense that if you spend your time poorly, it could cost you.
To make sure you’re spending your time right, you need to start by time tracking – using a tool like Toggl. You can then measure your time against what your hourly rate should be as a business owner, in order to get a gauge on how much your time “costs” your business.
You should only spend your time on the tasks that generate the most money per hour, or the tasks that only YOU can do. Pay attention to all the little jobs you do on a daily basis, and identify any that you can outsource for cheaper.
Hiring contractors gives you the flexibility to scale up or down based on the cash flow of your company. Many companies hire local talent, and there are many benefits to going local. But it’s worth considering that you can actually hire somebody in the Philippines with an MBA for the cost of our minimum wage.
Using cheaper labour from overseas, at above-market prices for that country, makes it a win/win for you and the employee. By hiring from a freelance marketplace like Upwork, you can outsource the smaller jobs that don’t need to be personally completed by you.
But first things first: let’s look at time tracking.
- Create a free toggl account
- Set up your projects for the day in the "project" tab
- Track your time for each project in the "timer" tab
- Check out your daily summary for your time tracked in the "reports" tab
- Keep tracking your time for the remainder of the week and see how much time you spend on each project over this period - was it what you expected? You can also test this with your team and get them to track their time as well.
- Post the results of your audit to your thread in the Module 5 Practicals Forum.
