Streamline Your Shop with Smart Systems - After the Show

And as I was listening back to this episode, and when I was sitting down in person, which was so nice talking to Jenn. What I kept thinking was you have to have systems for this kind of scalability. You have to have things in place for yourself, for your team, in order to do this successfully. And so that's where I really want to highlight and double tap on in this episode of After the Show this week is systems.

And specifically talking about project management, because Jenn talked about how her and her team uses Trello as their project management tool. I've used that many years ago with a graphic designer. Their preference was Trello. And you have these different boards that basically says, here's what we have going on. And then it moves to the next part of the project once the first thing is finished. She talked about Trello. She also talked about Slack.

And as I mentioned in this episode, I just started using Slack pretty recently this year in 2024 as a part of a mastermind I'm in, and it's been so great. So efficient. It's just a really quick, easy way to talk to other mastermind members, but such a great way for you to talk to your team without doing it through texting. So at Crystal Media, we don't actually use Slack yet as I'm filming this, but what we are kind of combo, like Jennn's combo is Trello and Slack.

Ours is Asana and Google chat or G chat. However, like there's a theme there where there is a project management tool and a chat tool. So if you don't have those things yet, I would really recommend it. Also, Jenn said in her episode where Trello is where things will live long term, like they'll live on, and they just use a free version of Slack, which doesn't record your history. So if there's anything that they need to reference back to, they'll keep that over on Trello.

And that in itself, there's a guideline of how we're using these two different technologies to create that efficiency. And I think that as small business owners, there's just such a big opportunity for us to create those guidelines and have those systems in place to allow us less stress.

If you want to either scale your store and, or you'd like to free up some time and, or you would like less stress or overwhelm and your team wants that too. Or if you just want a happier team and everybody's rowing in the same direction, it's about those SOPs. Those standard operating procedures, and it's about project management.

And so when it comes to project management, the types of things that you might have in your store that has either a Trello board or has an Asana task or an Asana template with it could be things like, of course, social media. Marketing, email marketing, newsletters. Those can all be projects that you are then getting really clear on who on your team is responsible. They're the owner of those projects.

Some of these are going to be you, some of it's going to be team members, and then you could be assigning specific tasks to ensure that X, Y, Z gets done every week, every day, every month, depending on what you're working on. If we're just looking at that marketing, email, social media, umbrella. And then you can copy all of these, like you could create templates and then just reuse.

So you're not creating the same thing every single time you're going into a new project or a new marketing initiative. You're just creating it one time and then you replicate it every other time. Now I know that's how Asana works because we use it. I'm sure Trello works the same way. So again, this comes down to those efficiencies and we spend a little more time up front getting ourselves set up for success.

And I think that's where a lot of small businesses skip over that setting up that time up front because it feels kind of scary. It's new. We haven't done it before. We have to learn some things and that feels frustrating. But I have to just like do this episode and say, it's so worth it. Like it will so save you so much time and create that efficiency. Like I said, if you want to scale, if you want less stress, if you want more time, these are the answers.

It's project management software and it's SOPs. We have an ad I've talked about this on Rooted in Retail. We have a training course around Asana that I did with a retailer, Beth Rich, who also spoke at my conference EVOLVE. And oh my gosh, I listened back to Beth's talk. It was so good. If you were there, like the things Beth has going on, she's doing so much in her store and her topic at EVOLVE was how she tripled sales in three years without retail experience.

And in order for Beth to see that kind of success, she has Asana.

She has systems. And so the things that Beth is using Asana for that you very well should be to is your purchase orders, freight tracking, special requests, special orders for your customers, accounts payable. Those five things right there will allow you and your team, so much ease because it's a system, you know how to find things. You could go to market, you pull it right up on your app. We talk about all this in the Asana course. We'll link to it.

You could go to crystalmediaco.com/asana to learn more. But when I was hearing Beth talk about how she runs her business and how she grew so quick, that's why I wanted to do that course because the importance of project management and SOPs. And again, you guys, it's not the sexy stuff here. Like trust me, it took us at Crystal Media many years to set these things in place. And now I have Maddie on my team. Maddie, she's set up all sorts of templates.

Let's say I get a new speaking gig, I send an email to Maddie and I say, we got the gig. Initiate the speaker sequence, and she initiates the speaker sequence. And what happens there is we have a template set up for Asana and she'll put the dates. It's all bulleted right there of everything she needs to do. We got to make sure those dates are on my calendar. We got to make sure that we're booking travel.

We've got to make a Google Drive doc that has the notes, that has the contact information, has the contract, we have to invoice for 50%. We have to invoice when we've done the gig, we have to create the slides. So there's all this stuff, right? And do you see how, I've done this a lot of years. I know all those things, but when I have a lot going on and if it was up to me to put on my Asana, to book travel to make sure the slides are done, to get this contract out, whatever I'm going to forget.

Because I have a million things going on and then you're late, then you're like, Oh my gosh, I can't get to this and it's a bad experience with me as a speaker. So I share that example. Obviously most of you are not speakers, but it goes to the same. It's the same thing within your business that there are certain things that are replicatable. In those cases, that's where we can really save ourself a lot of time and stress and hassle.

And the thing that I hear from so many of our retailers is how busy we are, how stressed we are. If you could get a couple hours a week back, like two hours extra in your week that you could do whatever. The heck you want to do with it. You could just sit and stare out of a window for two hours. I don't care. That's what you could. I like to do that sometimes. Sometimes we need it. I watch the birds. I get grounded because there's a lot going on in life, especially as a small business owner.

However you use those two hours setting up systems like this will create that time in your schedule and something that Beth said a lot. I think she said this in our course, but we also talked about it offline, how much happier her team is because she has these things in place because there's no gray area. There's no gray area. It's follow the system to ensure that all of this gets done appropriately and on time.

If you're looking at, if you're somebody like I was in Las Vegas at Super Zoo and I was talking to a pet store, obviously Super Zoo pet store, and they have been growing like crazy. Like just in a couple of years, there are seven store locations in the Vegas area and just doing some really awesome things. They continue to grow.

So in that scenario, I would imagine have to have some sort of project management software or some sort of SOP that lays out everything that needs to happen when they're opening another location. And if they don't have that, then I hope they're listening to this and they create that because it's only going to help you move faster. It helps create consistency. It helps ensure you're not forgetting a step. And when you could get it all out of your brain.

And it's online and my team has it and it's right there where I can reference back that frees up space in your brain for other things to come in.

We have limited capacity. As much as we like to think that we could be these super humans sometimes, like we just got to do what we got to do as small business owners. We do have limited capacity on how much we can hold. And so when you get that out of your brain and onto ideally online where you can access it anywhere in the world. From your phone, from a laptop. That's why I love Asana. I'm sure Trello does the same thing.

Oh, it just frees up so you can deal with other things that are going on in the business or in your personal life. So what project management does too is, or using a software like this also allows for you to have some better time tracking for both yourself and your team. So like with Asana, when I'm done with something, I can complete it. And you could go and look at your incomplete tasks. That's obviously your to do list, but then you can look at the completed.

And if you're like, gosh, where am I spending my time? I feel like I am just running around with my head cut off every single day. It feels like the to do list just gets longer and longer. I can't keep my head above water, but then I look back and I'm like, what have I done though? Like if I feel like there's so much I want to do. Where is my time going? This is really great because then you can, if you're actively, like if you're really putting things on Asana and you're actively using it.

And it's a part of your every day, then you can look back and see where that time is going. Or let's say you have a team member and they're coming up for a review. Or you're just feeling like they're kind of lacking a little bit. Then you can look at their Asana. Ideally, all their tasks are public. Cause you could also have private tasks, but they're public and you could see how they've been spending their time. Have they really been helping in these different projects?

Are they getting things done on time? You know, It just really helps you organize your time. And it was funny. I was at a conference a few months ago with Pauline and she's like, you need an assistant. And I was kind of fighting. I'm like, really? But like, what would they do for me? And that just feels like one more thing to do. Like I have to train the assistant and I'm really bad at asking for help. Like am I even going to use them?

And then we're sitting on the plane together and she got my mind thinking that way. And I look at my Asana and I'm like, I kind of nudge her and I'm like, okay, this could be an assistant. This could be an assistant. This could be an assistant. I listed four things in two days that could be an assistant. And it was nice to just have that written. I see it in my Asana.

Whether I put it on there, the team put it on there, we can really see it and it helps organize your tasks and your time to help you understand, am I spending the time doing the right stuff for my goals? Depending on where I want to take this business and the right, the things that fill me up and give me joy and more energy to keep going, or am I spending time on things that could be delegated outside of work? Stuff that drains my energy, not getting me to my goals.

It's really important for us to analyze those things. I just want to say this one more time, because I know I've said it several times, but the key here is that you make the change, you have to implement it. You have to just do it. And I know that's the hard part, but I would love to hear from you. You can go in our Facebook group for Rooted in Retail and I want a commitment. Let me know, first of all, like if you are already doing this, you use a project management software tool. What is it?

Is it Asana? Is it Trello? Something else. And do you feel really good? Like how are you using it? Cause me and other group members and there are the retails would love to know like outside of some of the things that I listed, oh events is a big one too. If you're running events. Great way, great thing to use project management software for. Cause those are so replicable, I don't know, whatever that word is. So how are you using it? If you're not using any kind of PM.

Software project management, structure, SOPs, anything like that. I want your commitment that you're going to now, I know we're in Q4, so like I get it. Maybe it's a January, February commitment, but you need to commit that you're going to set these things in place to create ease and structure and consistency within your business. I can't stress enough how much it's going to help you as a store owner. So I hope you found this helpful.

This episode came out on October 15th, which means today, if you're listening to this episode today, this is the, we close on our super early bird pricing right now for EVOLVE. Look, if you can't, if you're listening to this after October 15th, that's okay. Prices go up every couple of months. That the full price point is going to be in 2025. So you do have some time to save, but I'd love to see you in person. We're going to be talking more about these types of things.

And experiences and marketing and how to just really evolve your business and your mindset and your results. And so, I hope to see you there in person. And this was a really fun, I know Jenn, she even gave a shout out on the episode. She was at EVOLVE. She loved EVOLVE. This was a really great episode to sit down with her. She's also an ad client so it was so fun to sit down in person with the client. She's doing some really cool stuff. So go check her out.

Very inspiring how she has scaled her business. And one of those ways she's done it is through project management and communication tools. Like Trello and Slack. So go check out those things, implement them. Let me know in the Facebook group and I'm rooting for your success. Have a great rest of the week. Bye. Thank you so much for being here. It means the world to me. Don't forget to join the rise and shine newsletter, which is social media news.

You need to know sent via email every Monday morning, go to crystal media, co. com slash rise to join. And don't miss the newest episode of rooted in retail, which drops every Sunday morning.