You're listening to gift biz unwrapped episode 64. Why should I take your business seriously? If you can't take your message and your written information. Seriously, This is John Lee Dumas of entrepreneur on fire, and you're listening to gifted biz unwrapped, and now it's time to light it up. Welcome to gift biz, unwrapped your source for industry specific insights and advice to develop and grow your business. And now here's your host, Sue Monheit. Hi there.
I'm Sue and welcome to the gift is unwrapped podcasts. Whether you own a brick and mortar store sell online or are just getting started, you'll discover new insights to gain traction and to grow your business. And today I have joining us, Heather Robinson, Heather is co owner and creative director of editor. This is a professional copy editing and proofreading app where you get immediate online service, 24 seven with editing done by real people.
She's in business with her husband, Brian, while working in Singapore. Brian came up with the idea for editor the need for an online proofreading service was strong business in Singapore, moves fast, and many are not native English speakers or writers editor launched to the public in April of 2016. And they currently have over 5,000 registered users, small business owners, bloggers, job seekers, and students all use editor for their day to day writing.
So super exciting, Heather, welcome to the show. Thank you. Is there anything you would like to expound upon with the intro before we get started? I think you did a good job. It's pretty much your on-demand editing service for your day-to-day writing. All right. So what I really will want to do and just for our listeners, so you all understand how we're going to take this interview is we are going to chat with how they actually started to develop the app.
We're going to talk about the app and then it's applications potentially for you and your business too. So you're going to look at two different sides, how something like this even gets started, and then the value that this particular one could have for you. But before we jumped into any of that, Heather, we like to start off with hearing what your unique motivational candle would look like.
If you were to create your very own candle, what color would it be and what would the quote beyond that candle? Well, my favorite color is green. I don't know that I would choose a green candle, but probably we'll go with it. And a quote that I always think about it's not very, if at all is you'll find me somewhere between a juice cleanse and a donut bench falling because I always have really good intentions and sometimes just doesn't work out on a more serious note.
A quote that I do like that I try to remember is from Abraham Lincoln. And it says you cannot escape the responsibility of by evading Today. And that one kind of resonates just because I hate to admit that I'm sort of a perpetual procrastinator. So kind of reminds me like, if I push it off, it's not going anywhere. Yeah. It's still going to show up and soon to show its nasty little head again later. So you might as well just tackle it right away, right? Yeah, absolutely. All right.
Let's start talking about the editor app. Yeah. How in the world. Okay. So it's pretty understandable and very cool. How Brian uncovered the need for this, you know, because it's not just people who are in other countries who need to speak proper English. A lot of people here in the state, we're so easy with our language. It's so easy not to put correct grammar on paper these days. Would you agree? Yeah, it's I think just with so much typing and texting, it's kind of gotten away from us.
I mean, when was the last time any of us really learned grammar, like seventh grade. So it really doesn't stick with you unless you reading a ton or a really honest, Right? And now all these apps that you have, you can just, or not apps, I don't mean that, but even a phone, you can just press the mic and speak right into it and send a text message. So it ends up being more, your spoken word that's written down versus real correct grammar, Right. And sometimes even a text to talk will get it
wrong. I know a lot of people use dragon dictation and other dictation programs to write emails and write their papers. And unless you're really reading over, it could translate something incorrectly or say F O U R a few points for, and so things like that are just contextual mistakes that a spellcheck or something else isn't gonna catch. You're really gonna need human to be reading it and understand.
Right. Okay. So Brian saw the need because he was in Singapore and saw it really prevalent there. So saw that there was an opportunity to fill that gap. What do you see is the value of making sure that you have your grammar proper? Why is that even important? I believe it's important just because it'll make me take you
seriously. If I'm reading through a sales letter or an email and there's even two or three mistakes, I'm kind of going to think twice about, well, if you're not taking your message to me, seriously, are you taking your business serious? Are you, why should I take your business seriously? If you can't take your message and your written information seriously. So it's a whole credibility play and what your images out to the world. Yeah. I really think it's a level of professionalism.
It shows you double-check, what's going on that you care how you're presented out to your customers and, yeah. Right. And I think in this day and age, there are so many options. So if you were a marketing company, for example, and your brochures had misspelled words or your letters out to customers had misspelled words that could look like your company is less than the level that someone would want to use. And so they'll go onto the next one because there's always a next one these days.
Lots of options. All right. So let's talk, I'm very curious. How in the world, once you have this idea, how do you build an app? Take us through the process of how this actually became a reality. I probably can just give you like a glossed over version because I am not a programmer and I didn't develop it. That was all Brian. So he kind of is like a self-taught developer, a programmer. And once he and his partner decided, well, this is something that we need. He also is a college professor.
So he kind of was like, well, I have this huge network of teachers and professors that I know. And if somehow we could just dispatch this information out to people, they can pick it up and fix it. It was kind of when Uber was growing and starting to get really popular. So they just started sitting down and coding a lot of coding. Actually the first prep of developing an app would be kind of almost like writing a book. Like you have to write out, you know, what do you want to achieve?
How do you want it to look how it looks today is not what it looked like, probably on its first through fifth rounds. So it is a lot of stylization and really just depending on how are people gonna work through it too, because when you're building something, it makes sense to you. And then when you give it off to a friend to say like here, try this out and you don't even tell them how to use it. You have to watch them using it to see what do they intuitively do.
And sometimes it's not always what you think it's going to be, Right. Just the whole user experience. You have to look at it from that end as you're developing and as you're going through draft by draft, Right? So they took about a year to develop just actually the backend app.
There's also an algorithm that we have that will filter the better editors to the top for when they get notified as they get rated and as their speed so that it will eventually naturally weed out any editors that maybe aren't up to par. Okay. You know what, at this point, I think it would be good so that our audience understands what you're actually talking about. Let's go through and talk about the process, what the app looks like now today.
And then we can get back to what you're talking about with the better editors and all that, because I think it'll become clear to people. So if you would talk through how it works from a user perspective and then how you get your editors so that, you know, for sure you've, you're getting quality work done because you are not editing. I mean, it's not just Brian and Heather on the other side, editing all of this. So walk through all that for us. Would you first from the customer standpoint?
So if I wanted to submit something to you, I was interested, how does that work? Sure. Well, we have both a web app and a mobile app. What that is is you can go and use the service from your desktop on our website, which is editor with two rs.com. You would go there and sign up for an account and then you can get started. We have a, how it works tab with a great explainer video.
Essentially what you do is sign up login and you can either cut and paste your writing into the work field, or you can type right into it. You would then click submit and that's it for you. Is there any limit on the length? We have a 2000 word limit and that's actually pretty long. That's about three pages, Sales letter or lots of different types of wording. Yeah. And we have it limited to 2000 words just because we really wanted it to be more of your day-to-day writing.
We want our editors to be able to pick it up mobily in between what they're doing. Anything over 2000 words takes a lot more time to edit. So you're not going to submit a book. No, there's other stuff. All right. So you submit your work and then what happens? Where does it go? That will then be dispatched out to our network of editors. They'll receive a text notification that says, would you like to make $2 and 10 cents pick up this job?
And so then the first editor to pick up the job gets it, you'll then get a notification that says your job has been picked up and editors out of the unit. And it should be back to you within about five minutes, depending on the length, the editor will then edit it and press submit on their end. You'll get another notification that says your job is fixed and done, and you can check it out. You'll then see two versions, you'll see a marked up version so that you can learn and know what's happened.
And then you'll also have a clean version so that you could either send it off right from the workspace. And it'll be emailed from the email that you used to sign up, or you can cut and paste it and put it wherever you need it. I love the fact that there's that learn aspect to it. Yeah. That was really important. Cause we, Did you have that right from the beginning? Or did that kind of evolve as you were going through all your different drafts? That was actually from the beginning.
Yeah. We wanted people to be able to learn and know what they're doing incorrectly and why. Right. And how long is the turnaround? Approximately? Obviously it depends on length of course, but approximately hour, Our average turnaround is 5.1 minutes. Oh my gosh, you guys 5.1 minutes to make sure that everything is proofed and put together properly and it goes out and it comes back and it's ready to go. That is super cool, Heather. Yeah. It's really great to see it come back to you so
fast. Cause that was the big thing. A lot of people, they want to get their email out quick. They want to get their blog posts posted and they don't like sitting around waiting for someone to pick up their email, read over it. So that was very important to us. Is speed. Okay. So then how on the other end, how did you get all of your editors and you offer 24 seven service. So how that had to have taken a lot of planning to get that whole thing set up and ready to go.
Yeah. The 24 hour service was challenging to kind of figure out at first, I'll let you know I was editing work probably around 2:00 AM the first week or so, Because you just didn't have editors in the time zones that would be available to pick it up probably right. You just didn't have enough. And at the level and English knowing English. Yeah, absolutely. So they're probably the first week or so it was Brian and they had a lot of sleepless nights picking up these jobs when they came in.
So for the 24 hour, we have actually a few editors overseas that are English speaking, but they're just an ex-pats. So they're the people who kind of take our overnight medics and fighting the editors. We started out with solid group of professors who Brian knows who had to pass the assessment. So we found an English assessment that we've tweaked and rewritten and that's the first step.
And then after you pass the grammatical English assessment, you will then edit three jobs, like three test jobs that we've strategically placed, common mistakes and just kind of a variety of issues. And that is checked on how fast you edit through it and how accurate your editing is. And so that's how the editors are vetted. So if someone wanted to be an editor who's listening right now, are they able to apply? Yeah, absolutely.
If you go to our website, editor.com on the top right side, there's a small box, it says become an editor. And then you would just sign up through that button and apply there. All right, let's get back to the app development. So now everyone understands how the app works, who the editors are and we're talking already about the quality. Clearly your result is only going to be as good as the quality of the editors. So you really took that seriously in terms of making sure that there was a process.
And do you reject a lot of people? We do. I mean, I'm excited about it, but yeah, there's some people that just don't pass and unfortunately we need to maintain high standards. Right. That'll make or break your service for sure. Yeah. And so now you're creating this from scratch, not been around before. How do you decide what your pricing structure is going to be? The pricing structure was probably our hardest issue to tackle that. And right now it's on, I mean, it's good.
Our pricing is staying the way it is, but this is probably the third round of pricing that we finally finalized on. There are a few similar programs, but they're not either on demand. They're not fast or they're not real people. So there were a few things that were similar to what we're doing that we're able to look to. And we also thought about like, well, what would we pay and broke it down that way.
If I was sending a sales letter to, to someone who I wanted to become a tenant of mine or something like that, how much would I pay to just really make sure that that letter is buttoned up and started from there. And then we also asked around a lot, like, what would you pay? What do you think? Do you think this is too high? Do you think it's too low? And so I think it's really kind of have to ask around and do a lot of research to come up with what works.
And then once we laid out the pricing and put it up there to the public, we even got more response and then tweaked it a little bit more. So I think the importance about that is just fluidity and being able to pivot to what your audience and what your customer wants. It needs. I just heard from you is there were really three steps. There was research. So identifying what was already out there and what the pricing models looked like, albeit they weren't real life. People like you had.
So yours has a twist to it. Then a reality check in terms of how much you think would be reasonable if you were actually using the service and then bringing it to the customers and getting feedback from them. So kind of a three tiered thing in terms of the pricing and give biz listeners, we talk about pricing of your handcrafted products. And this can be a very similar type of a process. Now with you guys, you have materials and you have time in and labor and all of that.
But in terms of the steps of the research reality check and then live testing, these are three steps that you could easily apply to your businesses as well. The other thing Heather, that I thought was really interesting and important to bring up and underline here is there are several places where you did put something out, you tested it and you revised it. You put something out, you tested it and revised it.
You'd mentioned that just in the app development, in the coding, you had multiple drafts before you landed on the exact thing, same thing with pricing. You had several passes before you've landed on what sounds like now you'll use for at least some time, right? You never know if there'll be a revision later or adjustments for a large corporate business or, you know, whatever that might be.
Again, the point is you don't always land at the first time you put something out there, you test it, you can always adjust. And even if you don't get it right, the first time, probably 90% of the time, you won't, that's not a failure. That's just an adjustment and an additional learning and advancement you make for your businesses. And that's exactly what you were doing here, Heather. Yeah. The people who are using my service now have no idea that it was priced differently six months.
Well, we haven't been around for six months, but it was, it wasn't the same in April. So you kind of have to keep that in mind too. You know, what you did wrong or was different, but like you said, 90% of the people aren't going to notice. And just because you maybe got it wrong the first time, it doesn't really mean it was wrong. It just wasn't what was perfect. And really the service still isn't perfect. I mean, I'm, I'll never say anything. It's perfect.
It's always going to be growing and evolving. Absolutely. All right. So when we're creating our own products, whether it's a company or an app or a piece of jewelry, and we're our own boss in the beginning, when you first start off, everything's beautiful. You're going to create this product or this service and life is going to be beautiful, but we know that that's not reality problem set in. There are sleepless nights. Things can be a struggle.
There's that gut wrenching moment when something you thought was perfect, all of a sudden is wrong. Can you tell us about something like that? That has happened with editor? Yeah. So she says hesitantly. I mean, absolutely the sleepless nights, the long working hours, the, are we ever going to make any money out of this? All those questions come to mind when you are building something like this and starting a business.
I think as business owners, you kind of have to swallow the reality that you're probably the last person to be paid. Unfortunately, our editors are paid, but getting to that point is a slow point. And you just have to have faith in yourself. One kind of moment we had was right at the beginning of April, we had launched and someone bought like a pretty decent package. They were not only a user, but they were like a paid user. And they wrote up their sales newsletter inside our desktop.
They didn't copy and paste it or anything. They wrote it in there and they submitted it. And some like wires crossed, well, not real wires, but you know, like wires crossed on the backend and they lost it. And they just freaked out because they, they were like, I just spend an hour writing this. Where is it? And it took Brian about a day to find it in our database, but he was able to recover it and fixed the problem that caused their connection to basically lose it.
Like it would never really was lost, but it was hidden unless you were going in the backend database to find it. And so that was the biggest, Oh my God moment. Cause they were paying and it was in the beginning. And So how did you manage the communication with them as you were struggling frantically to figure this out. Brian had emailed them and said he was looking for it. It should be able to be recovered, please. Don't panic essentially. And he would let us do the panicking.
He's like, I'll get it back to you. He actually gave them his direct phone number. He's like, if you need to call me, you can, but no we're looking into this and we'll get it back to you. So customer service is really important to us in being transparent and being accessible. We're On pins and needles. Did it all end? Well, yes, It didn't work out. Oh yay. He recovered, the writing found the job. It was fixed and they're actually still customers.
So it was good, but that was probably the biggest problem And big point. All of us as businesses. Now you were in development stage yet. So you were still early in testing the systems and all that, but still, if you ever fall short of what your customer is expecting, that'll happen to all of us. And we can just assume that there's a time and a place where that is going to happen.
But the big point I'm so glad you responded as you did, Heather is communication with your customer and not having them feel like they are out there and not being recognized, you know, and that their issue isn't as important to you as it is to them.
That communication goes miles in terms of just while you're resolving the problem or working through any situation, because that really shows on, I honestly think this separates quality businesses from those who really don't care, who aren't going to put in the time. And you may end up on the other side with a more loyal customer than just a regular customer where everything goes perfectly all the time. Would you agree with that? I do.
And I feel like if people have people don't share really their good experiences, people will share like exceptional experiences and terrible experiences. So if you're able to go above and beyond and really help the person, I think it will come back to you because then they'll tell people and say, you know what? I had this problem, but they totally took care of it. It all worked out. And I think that will come back to you like later. Okay. Agreed. All right.
Now I'm going to make you tell a story and we did not prep for this. So get ready Heather and I saw each other at social media marketing world in San Diego a couple of months back. And I want you to walk through and tell the story kind of quickly. We don't have to go through the whole thing, but tell the story about Chris Brogan and his comments about the app and just the whole situation, set it all up and give us that story.
So he was speaking and we were sitting there with Brian, my husband, and he's kind of always been a fan of Chris Brogan. He's read his books, but my husband is also not a fan boy. Like people don't impress them in that way, but you know, he was still kind of excited to be there during Chris's speech. He challenged us to all do something that was out of her comfort zone. Something that we wouldn't typically do.
And he also mentioned something about failure is just part of life and how many sticker, like startup business stickers. He peels off his website or his laptop every year, which is funny because my husband and I's laptops are full of stickers. So after the talk, Brian walked up and introduced himself and then handed him an editor sticker and was like, here's a sticker for your laptop. Hopefully you don't have to peel it off in a year. And that kind of just keep the conversation going.
He didn't want to go up and sell them anything. He just wanted to like be funny and give them a sticker. And so then Chris asked like, well, what is this quickly told them about it. And he was like, this is awesome. So many people mean to use this. I think it's great. And so Brian did something that was out of his comfort zone. He wouldn't have normally gone up to someone that he didn't know to talk to.
And then later that day I was walking by and Chris Brogan and Steve Dotto and a few other people were sitting at a table and I'm just walking by the table. And I say hi to Steve Dotto. Cause I know him a little bit better. And Chris Brogan stops me and he's like, Hey, Brian's wife. But he actually did remember my name too, but he's like, you're going to tell all these people about editor.
And before I could even finish telling people what editor was, he kind of interrupted me and like finished the pitch for me. So it was pretty awesome that he got it immediately and really liked it. And so Brian and Chris can email each other back and joke and they're like friends now. So it's really great Is super and to get some recognition and some eyes on the app from someone who has quite a following and is very professional, you know, in and of his own right. Is so cool.
So you never know when those things are going to come. Yeah. I think it's just about being like real and honest and, and funny. Yeah. Brian didn't even really know what he was doing, but he drew attention to himself just because it wasn't the same old, hi Chris, I'm Brian and you know, love your book, great speech, you know, whatever. He came with something different, which really started the conversation in a different direction. And I'm sure captured Chris's attention.
Yeah. All right, Heather, I want to go now into our reflection section. This is the dive into you and what makes you productive and how you go through your day, which might give us clues that we can capture and use for ourselves. If you were to think about something that's innately in you, that you pull out every day to be more productive and to be successful as you are now with this editor app, what would that? Well, we've already talked about my awesome procrastination.
So I feel like I'm pretty creative and calm. A lot of stuff doesn't really get to me right away. At least I kind of am like, okay, it's always going to get done. No, one's dying. So I feel like I kind of have this calmness factor that I don't like have freak out moments right away very often. Okay. That's good. Do you, I mean, you're just naturally that your response is pretty calm and like, okay, here's the problem now let's work through it.
I think so Brian will probably say something totally different. He would probably be like, are you kidding me? Like freak out. I try to work through it and come up with a resolution before I just throw in the towel and freak out and say, Oh my God, it's we have to shut down a business. And so I think kind of just like a calmness factor until I hit the procrastination wall and creativity, I try to come up with I'm much more productive and better at working when I'm in like a creative area.
So it sounds like you're kind an outside of the box Thinker. I try to be. So yeah, definitely thinking more outside the box, more in a, in a creative way. All right. Super. Do you have a tool that you use regularly now? Obviously we're going to be talking about editor in the show notes page, but is there anything else that you find yourself calling upon day after day that's really important for you, for your productivity or to create balance in your life?
Yeah, I OmniFocus to track basically like all my tasks and OmniFocus is a program. I think they have it for PC. I have it on my Mac and you can install it. It's it's just like a great schedule. It's not even a scheduler. It's more just like a it's where you put like your tasks and your projects and it kind of breaks them down. Then you have everything then all in one place. Yeah. So everything's in there. I've also lately started using Slack and I really like that.
Cause I feel like it kind of takes away emails, Brian and I, especially just aren't emailing back and forth like stupid one-liners. So Slack kind of helps keep that email clear Slack is I believe I have not used Slack, but I've heard about it before, correct me if I'm wrong. I just want to give a clear picture for our listeners is kind of a conversation between a group, but it's outside of email. So you're still communicating back and forth.
Would you liken it more to messenger on your phone is if you were in a messenger group, It is similar to that, but you can also attach things. So like, if I want him to add a picture to the website or edit something for me or whatever, I can throw this stuff right into Slack and have it all in there. It is similar to messenger, but it also keeps it all there. You can search within Slack to find things. All right.
Interesting. Well, give biz listeners, if you're working in any groups where you're passing information back and forth, whether it's comments or attachments or material, and you want everyone's eyes on it, it sounds like this may be something to check out. Yeah. And you can do private messages too. So like everything is most of it's public. But if I wanted to just privately message someone in the Slack group, you can otherwise it is like a big group message.
Wonderful. Okay. And have you read a book lately that you think our listeners could find value in? Yeah. This is probably the third time I'm reading it, but again, I really need to get things done. It's getting things done by David Allen and that kind of goes with the OmniFocus. It's really about not letting chaos of business mandate what you do every day. He created the whole inbox zero, which my inbox is not zero right now, but that's why I'm reading the book again.
So I think as business owners and entrepreneurs, I think that's a great book because it really helps you outline your day and your week. And has you put timelines and tasks to each project and then how you can break down a project so that it doesn't seem so, so you're like, okay, I need to launch this new product. Well, what 20 steps do I need within this launch of a product? Do I need to create?
And then it helps you go backwards and break down what you're doing, that you need to get to that Well, and that does sound then like a book that you would want to reread because when you read it the first time, you're probably just getting the whole concept. Then you can read it other times because there are multiple projects that you're going to have over time and you might forget, or you might just need that extra motivation to do it in a structured way.
Give busy listeners just as you're listening to the podcast today, you know, you can also listen to audio books with ease. I've teamed up with audible for you to be able to get an audio book for free. All you need to do is go to gift biz, book.com and make a selection that's gift biz book that all right, Heather, I would like to present you with a virtual gift. It's a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your future.
This is your dream or your goal of almost unreachable Heights that you would wish to obtain. Please accept this gift and open it in our presence. What is inside your box? I think financial freedom. If I could sell editor, I don't know.
I think in the future, I would love to just be able to travel, be with my family and then as like work or as something challenging, I'd like to invest in other companies and help other companies grow and invest in other startups and other small companies Helping other people, then you're having yours be successful and then helping other people see the same success as you. Right? Cause the success of my company would lead me to the money to be able to invest in them.
Exactly. All right. And so now if our listeners are interested in learning more about you or more about editor, where's the single best place for them to go. I would first go to editor.com And remember everybody it's editor with two RS. Yes, Let's go there. Cause you can find everything out about the service. We have our pricing and how it works. If you want to become an editor, everything about that is there. And then our Instagram is probably kind of fun, which is editor app.
And we're actually at editor app everywhere, but Instagram is probably the most fun. And then if you want to learn about just me, you can find me on my Facebook page or on my Instagram, which is Heather A. Robinson and that's public. So Okay. And give biz listeners, you know, they'll show notes page will be backing all of this up.
So if you're out and about, and you don't have time to make a note of that, just jump over to gift to biz on rapt, find Heather's page and you can capture all of this information as well. Okay. And Heather, I think you shared with me a little bit of a special surprise for our listeners. Yes. Today or anytime you're listening, you can use the code and gifted to unlock 500 free words. That is basically our silver package, which is a $13 value. You're giving that to our listeners at no charge.
Yes, absolutely. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much, Heather. That's fabulous. You're welcome. We really want people to use it and enjoy it and gets me set of it. So 500 words should get them about a blog post or two to three emails to really get a handle on the service and see how it can help them with their business. Wow. Well you told me you had something, but I didn't know it was that spectacular.
So thank you so much and give busy listeners, I believe the way to you'll correct me if I'm wrong, Heather, but you'll just go to editor, sign up for an account. And then in the discount code area, you'll just put gift biz. Is that right? Yep. That's correct. And you can sign up@editor.com and that's E D I T O R R with two RS. Or if you download the app on Google play or iOS, you can also sign up through the app. Heather, thank you so much.
It has been so interesting really, to understand how an app gets developed. Some of the struggles you had, all of the information that you've shared in terms of getting this up, going live and super exciting that you were seeing such great results right out of the bat. I just love that. And I wish that you and Brian always have your candle burning, Learn how to work smarter while developing and growing your business. Download our guide called 25 free tools to enhance your business in life.
It's our gift to you and available@giftbizonrap.com slash tools. Thanks for listening and be sure to join us for the next episode. Today's show is sponsored by the ribbon print company, looking for a new income source for your gift business. Customization is more popular now than ever your products with your logo or print a happy birthday, Jessica ribbon to add to a gift right at checkout, it's all done right in your shop or cross studio in
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