The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

63 ⎸ How we work virtually as a team Part 1

August 24, 2022 Serena Shoup, CPA Episode 63
The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast
63 ⎸ How we work virtually as a team Part 1
Show Notes Transcript

 I get so many questions about what tools we use and how we use them, so this week Meriah (my Director of Operations at Team Shoup) and I are breaking down how we collaborate as a team to get everything done and maintain our team culture.

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • the tech and tools we use to collaborate internally (next week will be about tools we use client-facing)
  • how we get the most out of these tools
  • how to handle the overwhelm when it comes to all of these tools
  • Episode 19: Why We’re a Xero Firm

Products Mentioned (some are affiliate links)

Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram Stories and tag me, @ambitiousbookkeeper

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[00:00:00] Serena: Welcome back to the ambitious bookkeeper podcast. This week, I have my integrator director of operations, Mariah on with me, and we are sharing with you how we work together and collaborate as a team inside of the firm and ambitious bookkeeper. And we've broken this up into two episodes. So in this part, one of this. 

[00:00:25] Topic, we are breaking down our internal collaboration tools, the way that we work together, virtually as a team and ensure that we're able to stay on top of all the moving pieces while we are all spread across the U S so just a little background. Mariah pretty much helps me run both of my businesses. She's very involved in ambitious bookkeeper, but she also helps me run the operations of the firm. This episode will give you kind of an idea of how we do that. Using virtual tools. 

[00:00:58] And I hope that you find lots of value in this episode. And next week we will be talking about the tools that we use. Externally facing to collaborate with our clients. If you find this episode useful and helpful, please screenshot it and share it on your stories on Instagram. I'm at ambitious bookkeeper. 

[00:01:20] And I would love to hear your takeaways and make sure you listen around for the part where Mariah gives you some advice on. How to tackle the overwhelm when it comes to all of these systems that we use. All right so without further ado welcome to this little chat that i had with maria

[00:01:41] 

[00:02:12] Serena: All right. Hey Mariah. 

[00:02:13] Mariah: Hey Serena. 

[00:02:16] Serena: This is gonna be a super casual conversation, so don't be nervous. But today we're talking about how we work together virtually as a team, like how we collaborate some of the tools we use, because both of us have been seeing these questions pop up a lot in our group. And I've been getting some DMS for clarification about how we use Dubsado versus Kajabi versus how do we take payments from clients? So. We figured it was time to do a special episode. And I thought it would be fun to have you on because you are an integral part of making all these tools work and having a virtual team. 

[00:03:00] Mariah: Thank you. I'm glad to be here. I'm excited to be here with you. 

[00:03:08] Serena: All right. So before we hit record, we were going through the list of our tech stack basically, and kind of separating, like what's an internal software versus external. So like what do we use internally to communicate and collaborate as a team? And what do we use externally to collaborate with clients? And then there's some that better for both. So do you wanna start with the internal, the team stuff and then kind of move on outward facing?

[00:03:38] Mariah: Sure I can do that. So one of our big tools internally is Slack. We use Slack basically to communicate. That is our main communication tool is slack to communicate as the team. And that is solely internal. We do have information like we have different channels and the different channels have the different clients. And then we have say, for example, we have a channel for the workshops and we have a channel for BBA our signature program. And then we also have our direct message channels. We also have a team building channel. We could go into all the various different channels, but Slack is a very integral part of our communication. And say, for example, if we have several people that work on a certain client and we post something in that channel. We can tag that person. We can say like at Serena and then write that question or whatever for Serena in there. 

[00:04:42] So Slack, and then we have asana. And Asana is really where all our, our projects live, our client workflow lives. And that really just kind of keeps us on task with the day to day. 

[00:04:59] And then we have Gusto and that is kind of our hub for our employees, where they can do surveys, where they can check and see on their pay stubs and things like that. 

[00:05:15] And we also have Notion is a big one that we use for our database and wow. Serena, what all do we have in Notion? We have a lot. 

[00:05:27] Serena: Yeah. So we, we implemented notion after we started implementing Notion right around the first workflow queen retreat. Shout out to Alyssa and her team. And you can learn how she teaches notion inside of her program Breakthrough. But what she explains Notion as is like the brain of your business. So where we used to have lots of things in Google docs was really hard to stay organized with those. It was really hard to search them. So Notion we're able to embed lots of things so we can embed videos. We can embed Pictures and all sorts of stuff and have like spreadsheets embedded even. But it's a really awesome place to have like a central hub of all the information that it takes to run the business. So the way that Alyssa explains it is Asana is where you check off the tasks that you're doing and then Notion is how to complete those tasks, like the brain behind it and all the additional information you're gonna need. And then it also has lots of stuff that isn't necessarily assigned to a specific task. It's just like background information on our business. So we have our core values are in there. We have job descriptions. We have basically anything that you would have on a Google doc or a word doc as a page in Asana and we're able to link things to each other and reference stuff.

[00:06:51] So we use it more, I would say more heavily on the Ambitious Bookkeeper side because there's just so much more like creative content that goes into that. But we have one of the big things in there for the firm is our standard operating procedures. So it's basically how you do each task that's in Asana. There, there should be a corresponding SOP in Notion and yeah. Is there anything you wanted to add to that? 

[00:07:19] Mariah: I just agree with you that it's the brain 

[00:07:21] Serena: Yeah, it's a beast and we're all still learning too. Like how to best use it and keep it looking organized. But I would say the pages and databases that I spend the most time on inside of Notion are, we have our weekly team meeting notes in there. So we have like an agenda and action items that come from the meeting and discussion points in there. So we're all in that one document together on our team meetings. That's one area I spend a lot of time in. 

[00:07:49] The other area is my podcast database. So for planning this podcast, I have all of my outlines, my show notes, all the links to all the things. I spend a lot of time in the podcast database and then the SOP database. So those ones are like the big three for me. What about you? 

[00:08:10] Mariah: I would say the launch is one of the huge things for me. Definitely just that's where not only Asana, but Notion is a huge place where, when we're starting to plan for the next launch, we'll get it all started there. And maybe you and I will go back and forth. I'll have questions and we'll iron out some integral parts of things that we want for the next launch. 

[00:08:35] So definitely the launch, the team meeting as well, that hub and the SOPs. Yeah. We're I think we're constantly. Just adding to those and growing that database. Notion has a learning curve to it 

[00:08:51] Serena: For sure. 

[00:08:52] Mariah: So if you decide to go forward with it, get somebody in your corner, like Alyssa, who has the genius there to support you with it, because it's definitely a learning curve, but if you can get past that learning curve, you'll just love it.

[00:09:05] Serena: Yeah, honestly, I felt the same about Asana. Like all of these programs that have such a wide capability and they're so robust, right? They're, very robust programs and it can be really overwhelming when you first dive in and you just kind of wanna give up and go back to your pen and paper, and I still do that. I always have notes on my desk because sometimes it's just easier to write it out first and then put it in the digital format. But having a digital format is really important when you're talking about working virtually with a team. So as long as everybody's on the same page of like, it's great to have your own written notes, but please just make sure you're also updating Asana and updating all the places. Sometimes I have to like look at my Asana and then prioritize things. And then I just write those three priorities on a piece of paper. So I don't get distracted throughout the day. So figuring out how you work best with all the tools. 

[00:10:01] 

[00:10:01] 

[00:12:07] Serena: So yeah, Notion is a big one internally. What else do we have? Looks like Canva. So we use Canva for all of our graphics, for social media, for creating PDFs and all sorts of creative stuff. And we share the, the Canva account. So we all have access to the same, like templates and things, and the branding that we've set up in there. So like once you have your colors and your logos and everything, you can load them into Canva if you pay for the pro version, which is worth it. And then you can grab templates and just apply your own branding to the entire template where it'll switch out the fonts, the colors and everything for you pretty easily. And that's how I efficiently create social media posts that look beautiful because I'm creative, but I actually use templates. 

[00:12:57] Mariah: Well, and I was just gonna say, and I I've been asked this before, so I have to give a big shout out to Serena because yes, she is the one who does the social media. It's all her. So shout out to Serena. 

[00:13:12] Serena: Yeah, we were just discussing. This has actually been a hot topic in a lot of containers that I'm in my mastermind and with one of my private mentoring clients that has come up, the branding and the social media and just like the voice and all that kind of stuff. And like, I will be a hundred percent real. It's one area I've had a real difficult time outsourcing because it's my brand. Like it's a personal brand. So yeah, it's hard to let go of that for sure. And because I love doing it. 

[00:13:41] Mariah: And I think that's a huge key. That's a huge key to remember for anybody. If it's something you love doing and it energizes you hang on to it. 

[00:13:50] Serena: Yeah. As long as it energizes you, that's a good point. Okay. And so Canva, we use to create the graphics and basically anything with our colors on it, you can almost guarantee it came from can, or from Tia, cuz she's our in-house graphic designer.

[00:14:04] And then Loomly is the, the scheduling tool that we use. Not Loom. We'll get to that in a minute, but Loomly L O O M L Y is the social media scheduling tool that we use. So when I'm batching out social media content and writing captions and doing graphics, I, I load them into this tool and I have linked LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. So the same post goes out to all the places. But what I really like about it is that you can actually modify the individual captions for each platform. So where Instagram, you wanna use hashtags. For your social post and you can't really put links in the description. So you always reference like link in my bio or shoot me a DM for the link. Like that's how you wanna do your captions for Instagram. But for LinkedIn, you can actually drop an actual hyperlink and same with Facebook. So I always slightly modify the captions based on each platform. And what I know about that platform to do well. You, you can use hashtags and LinkedIn, but you don't wanna use as many. So it's like two or three. And then on Facebook, I don't usually use hashtags and honestly, I don't pay too much attention to this stuff on Facebook anyways, cuz I don't, I don't hang out there. I hang out in our groups, but not like on Facebook and we don't get very much engagement on our Facebook page anyways. I just continue to post everything there because I know there's a few of you guys that are on Facebook. And I do answer my DMS on Facebook. I really try anyways So those are our like marketing tools. What else do we have that we use internally, Mariah? 

[00:15:41] Mariah: We use one password and that is our password protection hub. So you can allow certain team members to have access to certain things. And so that's really nice that you're just not handing over the keys to all your passwords and everything. So it's really crucial to have something like that in place. 

[00:16:04] And Clockify is what we use for time tracking. It's a free software, very simple to use. And it's important even if you are the CEO sole person in your firm to track your time so that you know where your time is going and what you're spending it on. 

[00:16:26] Serena: Yeah. On our meeting today. I was like, I ran a report and clocky to see how much I had worked in the last week. And I'm not pleased about it. But it's good to like, even though we don't bill our clients hourly, we still track all of our time because I track our profitability. So you have to understand where everybody's time is being spent. And I don't use it in a micromanaging way, but it's more of like an informational, are we reaching capacity? How much time are we spending on this client? Do we have them priced correctly? So that's something I'm constantly reevaluating pretty much like every quarter I'll take a handful of clients and evaluate their profitability. It's not something that you have to do every month, but every so often you should, you know, have a couple months worth of time tracking data so that you can figure out if you're profitable on a client.

[00:17:16] But I track all of my time. I've been actually really religious about it lately. Okay. Maybe not all of my time. I don't really track my time that I'm on social media. on my phone. So, but what I do have to help me understand how much time I've been spending on that, even though it's not in Clockify is, I have my phone time out. So I have screen time restrictions on myself. Uhhuh because I'm like my teenage child. But because I want to make sure I'm not spending hours and hours and hours a day on social media, I have it set to where it will. time me out if I've been on any of my social media platforms for an entire hour. In total. So I could be on Instagram for 15 minutes and on Facebook for 45 minutes, and then it'll time out both of those apps to where it's grayed out and I have to intentionally unlock it. So it's like, I'm highly aware of how much time I've spent. And there's been some days where I've timed out in the morning. And so I'm like, well I guess I'm gonna be spending some extra time on social, but it's just like, kind of that awareness factor. So even though that's not in clock, I'm pretty aware that I'm spending at least an hour a day on social media, engaging and posting for work. So there's that. 

[00:18:36] Mariah: I think that's very important to be aware. Where is your time going? That's gonna help save you time every week. 

[00:18:42] Serena: Yeah. So the other area that we use that for too is like when we're recruiting and looking at our time sheets to see like what people are spending time on. So it's helpful when there's details on the time tracking of what you are spending time on that way, you can run a report and see, okay, where have I spent a lot of time that would be ideal if I wasn't spending any time in that area. And can I outsource some of that? 

[00:19:09] Mariah: Absolutely. 

[00:19:11] Serena: So that's pretty much all of the strictly internal ones you wanna move on to the tools that are both external and internal? 

[00:19:22] Mariah: Sure. So I will start with Loom. Shall I jump onto Loom? 

[00:19:29] Serena: Yeah. 

[00:19:30] Mariah: All right. So Loom is a really important tool that we use. If you're not familiar with loom, you can record videos. On there, which are very helpful for processes like your internal processes. So that's what we record all of our SOPs on. And you can have the camera turned on. You can have the camera turned off, but it also records your screen. And then we upload those into Notion. So that maybe you have a written SOP, but you also have then the visual. I don't know about you, but for me, I've gotta have that visual. It's very important. 

[00:20:07] So that's a great, great tool for that. Oh, also, well, internally, I might send Serena Looms also. So we send those just to different team members. Like if I need something, say I need a database created in Notion, I'll send it to one of our team members and say, Hey, this is kind of the ideas that I need, can you roll with this? Or I might ask Serena all kinds of questions. Using a alone video, I've sent her quite a few. 

[00:20:34] Serena: Usually when it's helpful to have that visual explanation of like, this is what I'm talking about, I'm stuck here, but I don't know where to look now or whatever. And those we send via Slack again. So our main communication channel. 

[00:20:48] Mariah: Yep. Those go back to Slack. And then we also use those externally and I'll let Serena jump on that because this is one of her zones of genius for how we use that externally in our firm. 

[00:21:02] Serena: Yeah. So we send our, all of our clients. If they don't meet with us, we send them a Loom video going over their financial statements and a little dashboard that's inside of Xero because we are a Xero firm. I will link to an episode in the show notes where I talked about why we are a Xero firm, because I get that question a lot. 

[00:21:24] So we'll send-- if even if our clients have the package where they are allowed a monthly meeting, our clients get busy and have life going on. So if they don't schedule their meeting with us, Within a certain timeframe. Then we go ahead and just create a Loom video. And it's a five minute overview. We call this our five minute financials, and this is actually something that I teach and I give you the script for inside of Elevate. So I'll link to that in the show notes as well. And I give you a script for both QBO and Xero. So even if you work in QBO, I've made it to where you can do this also in QBO, it doesn't have to be done in Xero and you can also take it in and do it on any dashboard basically that you create or tool that you use. So we send them a five minute overview of their financials and then any outstanding questions that we have for them that we need them to answer. All of our clients are online. Those are our ideal clients. And so they're used to watching videos of things. It might not be something that is as successful, depending on your client base. So always just kind of like evaluate it in that regard, but certainly, certainly use it internally, even if you're just, if, even if it's just you like record your processes in loop and just keep them. 

[00:22:40] Mariah: Absolutely. Because even if you don't grow, if it's a task, you don't do very often, you. Need that process again. 

[00:22:50] We also use Zoom and that is both internal and external. So we use Zoom for say creating this podcast episode, Serena and I are on Zoom right now, and we use it for our team meetings and then we also use it for one on ones and we use it for... Oh, goodness. There's a whole list of meetings we use it for. Serena uses it. I could let her speak to that, but Serena uses it for her one-on-ones we use it for leadership coaching and we use it externally to meet with our clients and we use it for our workshops, for our coworking sessions. For BBA, for Elevate. Good grief. Did I miss anything Serena? 

[00:23:35] Serena: I don't think so. We pretty much live in Zoom and Slack. 

[00:23:40] Mariah: Yes. 

[00:23:40] Serena: It's the gist of this 

[00:23:42] Mariah: Yes, that is very well said. 

[00:23:45] Serena: Yeah. But that's just, I mean, that's the virtual environment, so yeah. That's kind of what we've got going on. So it looks like we're actually at time, so we're gonna have to split this into two episodes. So if you wanna hear about the rest of our external collaboration tools you're gonna have to tune into the next episode. But we'll link all of the links for all of these programs that we're talking about in the show notes, some of them will be affiliate links, and I appreciate you using our affiliate links whenever you go to purchase some of these. But do you have any closing remarks, Mariah? 

[00:24:20] Mariah: I would say just real briefly, if any of this tech stack is new to you, I would say pick one. Pick one, get familiar with it, learn it because if you try to implement all of these, you're gonna just get overwhelmed, throw in the towel, and like Serena said, go back to your pen and paper. And I also have pen and paper as well. There's just something about it, but just don't get overwhelmed. Pick one, start there, get familiar with it. 

[00:24:47] Serena: And the other thing that helps too is especially for the, the things like Asana and Notion and Slack even is to just set a certain amount of time aside each day to go in and check in on those things and monitor them, and check your tasks off. You don't have to live in the thing all day long. In fact, that is gonna be very detrimental to your productivity, which is odd because all of these are quote unquote productivity tools, but if you keep them all open and on and the notifications going all day long, you're never gonna get anything done. So check in, in the morning, check in, in the evening or check in at midday. And then in the evening, same thing with your email. Like you have to set boundaries for yourself. Otherwise you will just get distracted and be not productive. 

[00:25:34] Mariah: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

[00:25:37] Serena: So, anyway, tune into the next episode to hear about our external collaboration tools. And if you found this episode useful, please take a screenshot and tag us on Instagram. We're at Ambitious Bookkeeper and we'll talk to you next week. .

[00:25:51] 

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