Peter Moriarty: I want to share with you some of my favorite
tools for managing a remote team. And these are absolutely
critical for me as a business owner, we've now been operating
a remote team for over six years now, our company is 11 or 12
years old. Now, I think. And we've used a number of
technology tools to keep our team connected. And to keep our
business successful. While operating fully remotely, I
always share with you some of my favorites and some of the ways
that we use them and how they replace how we used to do things
when we were in an office. Now, in the last year, everyone
during the pandemic has had to work from home. But for a lot of
people, they just kind of installed zoom and kept working
the same way they have always been working. And some people do
tasks on emails, some people do tasks on chat, I've seen some
businesses who have like WhatsApp groups with their
staff, and people are putting voice notes in there. And it's
just like the the worst productivity I've ever seen. And
it just scares the absolute crap out of me. So I want to show you
some of the most basic tools that you and other team members
inside your business can use to keep productive. So the number
one to get right with a remote team is tasks. And for us, we
use a tool called a sauna, which basically helps us keep
everything on the same page with our tasks. And this is it's so
underrated to get tasks correct in a business, because for what
most business owners do is particularly if you one of the
creative types as I am, is you imagine a vision of something
that you want to happen. And then you just kind of like share
it on a meeting once. And then in your mind, it's already done.
It's already created. And you know, you check in on it three
weeks later, when you remember it and it hasn't been done and
you go shit, why hasn't it been done. And it's because you
didn't actually correctly delegate it to someone to get
that task done. Now, sometimes for some of us that are a bit
more diligent, we might you know, write it up on a
whiteboard, or maybe we'll put it in an email or a chat
message, we'll ask someone to do it in writing. And depending on
that person's level of diligence, with how they do
tasks, or how they do projects, it may or may not get done. And
that all works fine when you've got like a small team maybe got
one or two or three people. But the moment that you go to
510 1520 employees and north of that, or if you are a small
business and you want to scale your business, you've got to get
on top of tasks, and you have to have a system for them. Now, I'm
not saying that a sauna is the perfect system. For every single
business. What I am saying is it's a great solution. If you're
just getting started, it happens to be our favorite. And we've
recommended it to hundreds of businesses that have implemented
it and getting tasks out of your head and into a system is the
easiest way to get some sanity in your business. And what I
mean by that is having a task system where tasks are actually
documented, and everyone follows the system because that's
vitally important. It removes the need for you to ask your
team. Is it done yet? Is it done yet? Is it done yet? Is it done
yet all day long. Basically, you can see whether or not a task is
complete. And the best thing about having a task collected in
a project is you can do things like a Gantt chart, and you can
see different deadlines, and you can see who's responsible for a
task. But what I love doing most of all, is having our weekly
meeting and opening up the task board. And then everyone gets to
actually check in on their tasks really simply with done, not
done or in progress. And so having a simple task system
means that everyone is going to be on the same page. Now why
would you do this, instead of using something like a
spreadsheet, or a Google Doc some of the features of using a
task system like Asana or the fact that you can actually put
in things like due dates, you can have sub tasks, you can set
up, you know, one project with particular milestones or
deadlines. Some of the amazing paid features have things like
custom fields, and deep integration with other apps. And
you can set up automations and rules that actually go through
automatically all kinds of cool stuff that you can do with a
system like a sauna. And of course, there's alternatives
like teamwork, calm, and monday.com, and podio, and all
kinds of different apps and systems that you can use for
tasks. But this is our favorite one for you to get started with.
If you do one thing, get your tasks, right, and you will get
your team so much more on the right page. And that's one of
the first things to get right. In our growth roadmap that we
help early stage businesses with
number two is keeping connected to your team. And I'm going to
go against the grain here. Most people use zoom for a lot of
your work. I'm a big fan of Google meat. And the reason that
I love Google meat, or one of the reasons that I love Google
meat is because it runs in the browser. And it just works. It
doesn't crash. It doesn't have to reload every time you open a
room. It's a single app that just works each time and you
don't have to worry about updating to the latest version.
If you record a meeting, you don't have to worry about it
rendering and slowing down your computer while you then wait for
it to upload. Google meat has a bunch of advantages over zoom.
If you're interested to learn more about that, then check out
our YouTube channel where we have a number of other videos on
Google meat, including a 2021 update with all of the new
features like breakout rooms, voting and all kinds of great
new features built into Google meet that you don't have to
reach for zoom for any more. Now when I'm working in my truck, I
literally have an iPad Air and that is My main Google meeting
device, I use that for everything. And from there that
basically runs meetings all day long, which is really cool. And
then you can see there, I've got my computer that just sits right
under it. And my computer is effectively there for me to use
as my primary device for actually getting work done. And
so I've got one device for working. And one device for
connecting with my team and actually doing meetings. Next
critical tool is Google Chat. And we use this instead of
slack, or WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, as I've seen other
business owners use because of the deep integration with the
rest of the Google ecosystem. Basically, this sits right
inside of my Gmail, it's got all these cool AI features where it
can automatically add responses and things like that in there,
I've got bots and add ons where I can have messages
automatically populate inside Google Chat, by default from
third party apps. And so when a sale happens inside our CRM,
which is copper CRM, or automatically will post in
there, when a customer gives us a thumbs up rating on a support
ticket from high vo, which is our shared mailbox application,
that will actually pop up in there and the rest of the team
can jump on and give everyone a high five. And so I love Google
Chat for everything that it's integrated with. There's also an
amazing integration with Google Calendar, which means that you
can set up a meeting, and it will automatically look at
everyone's calendar availability, and schedule that
meeting for you right from within chat. And so for me, I
quite often find that I'm chatting to a colleague back and
forward. And we want to just like jump on a spontaneous
meeting with one button, I can actually click and add a Google
meet right into the chat there. And it's going to take me
straight into a meeting with whoever I'm working with. So
that is my number three most critical tool for managing and
working with a remote team. Now, if you've caught our previous
videos about how we went from office to working remotely with
50 employees, you'd know that we actually try and replicate
things that we would do in a physical office in our remote
team. And one of those is having a water cooler chat thread. And
that all happens inside of Google Chat where people can
goof around, post memes, post videos, post funny things that
they find on the internet and basically have, you know, off
the cuff, kind of chit chat. And that keeps teams connected. And
I love using Google Chat for this because it's a way of
feeling like we're in the same place. Even though we're all
working in different locations. My next recommendation is Google
Drive, and specifically, the shared drives features of Google
Drive. Now, if you've been using Google Drive for a long time,
and you're still on the basic plan, which is now I think
called starter on Google workspace, they changed all the
names, that old plan doesn't include Google Drive, shared
drives, and shared drives act a little bit like a company
server, which we used to have, in the old days, when we had
local infrastructure and Microsoft servers in our
businesses, it allows the company to control the files
that actually sit there. If you've used Gmail and Google
Drive in your personal consumer gmail account, maybe you haven't
switched to a Google workspace business account yet. Or maybe
you're still sharing files out of your own mydrive. those files
and folders aren't really safe. If you've created a file, you're
the owner of the file, and that's fine for you. But if
you're working with someone outside the business, like maybe
a contractor or an assistant who is external to your business,
and they create a file, and pop it into one of the folders that
you own, inside your My Drive, if they created the file, they
own that file, and that means that they can actually delete
that file on you. And we've seen a horror stories where someone
does not own the files in their business, because the contractor
has created them. And when that contractor leaves the business,
those files get deleted, and poof, they disappear. And so
using Google shared drives inside of Google Drive means
that you have corporate control over all of those files. And
you'll
be able to actually see and manage and choose who has access
to those files. So if I go and open up my Google Drive here,
I'll show you guys exactly what it looks like inside my own
personal Google Drive. I'll open up my shared drives here. And
you can see here I've got all the shared drives for it genius
that I have access to. But I also have other shared drives
here that are actually owned by other domains. And what this
means is if I place one of my files into one of those shared
drives, I'm going to lose the ownership, it's going to become
owned by the company that controls that shared drive, and
therefore that's locked down and safe. The other great thing
about Google Drive and using that for all of your storage is
how it actually stores files. And so if you've used Dropbox,
or if you've used Microsoft OneDrive in the past, you'll
know that they can get a bit cumbersome, especially when you
have lots of files sitting in there, because they're all being
synchronized down to your computer. And it starts to kind
of like fill up your hard drive, right. And so with what was
called Google Drive File Stream, it's now just called Google
Drive for desktop, Google will actually automatically
synchronize only what's needed down to your desktop. So you may
have in this example here, 100 gigabytes of files sitting in
the cloud, and your total Google Drive of all your company files,
and only one gigabyte if that's all you're using is going to be
synchronized down to your local computer. Now, you can always
choose to save certain files offline or certain folders
offline if you want to access them. If If you're on a plane or
something like that, that totally works, no worries. But
the great thing about how Google Drive works is that you don't
have to have the whole corporate server downloaded to your
computer, it means that you can leave it nice and lean and
clean. And to be honest, most of us are doing a lot of our work
in Google Docs these days, which all run in the Google Chrome
browser anyway. And so that's my pick their Google Drive. If
you're still using Dropbox, if you want to make the switch,
have a chat to our team, we've got an amazing program called
the Google Drive blueprint, where we help migrate your data
cloud to cloud, so you don't have to bother with dragging and
dropping it. Okay, let's talk next about one of my other most
favorite tools for remote work. And that is doing phone calls.
Now, many business owners, unfortunately, still do business
using their mobile phone. And I really don't agree with that.
For me, my mobile phone is where my mom can call me where my
family can call me where my close friends can call me. And I
don't want my customers texting me at 10 o'clock on a Sunday
night because they have poor boundaries, asking me about work
things. And so five years ago, I removed my mobile phone number
from my email signature, and so it's no longer accessible to the
public. But I started using an amazing tool which we now resell
called Dialpad and what dial pad is is an app that gives you a
business phone number that comes with you everywhere you go. And
so Dialpad works on the mobile, it also works on your desktop
computer as well. And it's a fully fledged business phone
system for you and your team, which works across all of your
different devices. And we've got plenty of other videos on
Dialpad on our YouTube channel, please go ahead and check those
out. The most amazing thing about Dialpad is it doesn't
require any service at all. It's all completely cloud hosted. And
you can do cool things like switch calls between your
computer and your mobile phone. But the thing I love the most is
I can put a business number on my signature. And anytime
someone calls that number, it's going to come straight through
to my mobile phone, no matter where I am in the world. And so
I'm going to see it ring width dial pad, and then from there,
I'll be able to actually add to the call. And the customer has
no idea that I'm not in the office. As long as I've got 4g,
or a decent Wi Fi connection. anywhere in the world, I'm able
to access not only receive but also make calls from my business
line from my mobile. And it's really the best of both worlds
having the business line which is professional, it looks better
for branding, it's got unlimited calling. So you can call as many
people as you'd like for as long as you like. But you also have
the portability of the mobile phone. And I still get to use my
mobile for my mobile calls as well. And so if you're
interested in that, Oh, you want your whole team to have one
phone number to dial out from so you've got nice consistency in
your branding to your customers. Then jump on to Dialpad have a
chat to our team, we'll be able to hook you up with some
licenses and a test drive of the system to help you out. Speaking
of test drives, I like to sum up the Google ecosystem as the
Tesla of technology. Everything works seamlessly together and in
perfect harmony. And what we see is many business owners have
subscription overwhelm, and a hodgepodge of different apps and
services that they're using to try and get their work done.
Now, not only does this get absurdly expensive to use all
these different apps, because it's another 10 bucks here, no
10 bucks there. And if you've got five or 10 employees, you
end up having a subscription for everyone for zoom and for Skype
and for slack and for all these different apps. And sometimes
you can get data that gets held hostage in there or even lost. I
know with Slack, if you go over 10,000 messages, all of a
sudden, you can't switch back to the old ones that if you need to
find something from last year, then you might not be able to
find it anymore. I've got other videos on the perils of using
zoom and the perils of using slack when you're already a
Google workspace customer. But I want to implore you to bring
everything into one bring
everything into the simplicity of a simple system. And that's
the simplicity of Google workspace. A Google workspace is
one collaborated set of apps and services, which really allow you
to get work done in the googly way. Now, yes, there's not every
single button that you'll find in Microsoft Word in Google
Docs. There's not every single button that you'll find in Excel
inside of Google Sheets. keynote is not the same as Google
Slides. But let me tell you, and I'm using a Google Slides
presentation now, it's 90 95% of the way there and when you
consolidate all these apps to a simpler way of working. And you
know, remember, we've helped 1000s of businesses scale to
large organizations, and we've seen which ones are successful
and which ones are unsuccessful. The successful ones are the ones
that do things. Simply, your job is to empower your team to get
their work done in the easiest way possible. And so you want to
give them tools that are easy for them to use that are logical
for them to use, and that don't get out of control as your
business grows. That's my last little nugget that I'm going to
leave you guys with. If you have any questions, please drop them
right below this video right now and myself and my team will do
our very best to answer them. Thank you so much for joining
this presentation. If you have not already investigated our
growth roadmap, head along to our YouTube channel where there
are playlists for each stage of business that you are at. So
whether you're a large business, a startup business, a growth
business, a scale business, or if you're off to the moon in
accelerate mode, we have videos designated ended For each stage
of business that you're at, and really the aim here with our
growth roadmap is to make sure that you don't miss anything
important along the different stages of business growth. When
you're a two person business, you don't need to have business
dashboards with KPIs on a TV up on the wall. But if you're a 20
person business, and you haven't got password security sorted out
with an application like last pass, then you're going to be in
trouble. And so go through our different videos on the growth
roadmap, and learn what things you need to tick off at the
different stages. And of course, if you're interested in some
help from our team, will be very happy to help out with that as
well. Speaking about help from our team, we have an amazing
free offer for existing customers of Google workspace,
even if you sign up through a web host, or through Google
directly. And that is our transfer in offer. Now we give
you access to a google classroom with professionally recorded
videos all about Google workspace. And not only do you
get access to that, but you also get access to our remote work
playbook, which was an eight video webinar series last year,
going open book on how we grew and scaled our business into a
remote company over the course of six years, and how we've been
able to remain successful doing that. Now inside that library.
Included in those videos is a set of quizzes so that you can
actually train your team on how to use all the best features of
Google workspace. And those Google workspace videos are
going to help your team become competent on everything to do
with the Google world. And so how to get the best out of
Gmail, how to get their inbox down zero each day, how you
construct your Google Drive permissions correctly. So you
get everything set up and safe and secure. So you don't ever
lose any data, how someone can get the most out of Google
Calendar and share their calendars properly, create team
calendars, and get everyone humming along nicely. All of
these are included as soon as you transfer in your licenses to
it genius. Now what does that entail? You don't pay any extra
few Google licenses, you just put your billing through us were
a wholesaler of Google workspace. And so we pay Google
directly. And we can give you the same price that Google gives
you. But we can give you a bunch more goodies. And it doesn't
stop you from getting free support from Google if you still
want to get access to the Google Help Desk. But you do get some
limited free support from our own professional support team
and access to a few of our other tools. If you're interested in
that head long on the link below this video, or you can head
straight along to it genius.com forward slash transfer. If you
need help from our team, jump along to our chat here and our
team will be willing to assist with anything that you need.
Right now. We're available primarily in Australian business
hours, although we have extended hours available for European
customers and will soon be adding us time zones as well. So
look out for those in the future. If you're not yet on our
mailing list, head along to our website and download one of our
ebooks you'll get access to any future announcements that we
make on the email list, and we look forward to seeing you in
the next video. Cheers