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Hi there.
Speaker:It's Sue.
Speaker:And thanks for joining me for tips and Talk day.
Speaker:These are bite-sized Topics that I pull from community questions and
Speaker:things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small business.
Speaker:If you'd like to submit a topic,
Speaker:DME, over on Instagram at gift biz unwrapped In the name
Speaker:of productivity,
Speaker:I decided that today I wanted to talk with you about
Speaker:eight tools that I use in my business every single day.
Speaker:And initially,
Speaker:when I was planning,
Speaker:what I wanted to share with you,
Speaker:I thought it was only going to be five,
Speaker:but when I got right down to it and I sat
Speaker:back and closed my eyes and thought of how I manage
Speaker:my day to day,
Speaker:I found that it was actually eight tools that I go
Speaker:back to and resource all the time throughout my day.
Speaker:Some of these are running maybe a little subtly in the
Speaker:background and some of them I'm accessing on the regular.
Speaker:And you might be shocked to know that the most important
Speaker:tool that I use didn't make the list.
Speaker:Can you guess what it is?
Speaker:The iPhone.
Speaker:I swear if someone came up and wanted to Rob me,
Speaker:I would let them take by car before they wouldn't take
Speaker:my iPhone.
Speaker:But I'm feeling like the things that I might want to
Speaker:talk with you about on my iPhone would take up a
Speaker:whole separate podcast episode.
Speaker:So for now I'm putting that aside.
Speaker:Obviously my iPhone,
Speaker:no question,
Speaker:no even contender for second place.
Speaker:The very most important tool I use for my business every
Speaker:single day is the iPhone.
Speaker:But let's extend beyond that.
Speaker:Let's talk about some of the other things that I'm using,
Speaker:because my list spans from the obvious to not so obvious
Speaker:and probably some tools you've never heard of before.
Speaker:Plus, I'm going to share with you the ways that I'm
Speaker:using them.
Speaker:So you may already know about some of these tools and
Speaker:just aren't using them the same way I am.
Speaker:So in the spirit of sharing,
Speaker:here are the top eight tools that I use every single
Speaker:day. I find these tools to be important for three reasons,
Speaker:efficiency and productivity.
Speaker:So being smart with my time versus spending a lot of
Speaker:time on something.
Speaker:Second is clarity of focus for a similar reason.
Speaker:I want to stay on task with the projects that I'm
Speaker:working on.
Speaker:We all,
Speaker:I think I've heard at this point that there is no
Speaker:such thing as multitasking.
Speaker:When you jump from one task to another,
Speaker:you ultimately lose time in getting anything completed.
Speaker:And then finally,
Speaker:my third reason for using some of the tools that I
Speaker:do is continual learning.
Speaker:There are now so many tools available,
Speaker:and I just want to make a comment here about my
Speaker:strategy behind tools,
Speaker:just because new great tool comes out.
Speaker:I don't necessarily jump to try it out unless something is
Speaker:missing from an existing tool that I'm using,
Speaker:because we can spend so much time testing out the newest
Speaker:and greatest when really it replaces and allows us to do
Speaker:the exact same thing that we're already doing.
Speaker:To me,
Speaker:that's a waste of time and energy where I could be
Speaker:getting something a lot more productive and useful done.
Speaker:So with that,
Speaker:let's go ahead and dive into my eight tools.
Speaker:Some of these you're going to know,
Speaker:some of them might be brand new to you first on
Speaker:the list,
Speaker:Gmail. Now I know there's a lot of ways we can
Speaker:communicate with each other these days,
Speaker:there's phone messages,
Speaker:there's direct messages through social media apps,
Speaker:but I still feel like email is a specific and very
Speaker:important way that people are messaging,
Speaker:but our inboxes are crowded.
Speaker:I don't know if you have as much stress about this
Speaker:as I do until I found a great system through Gmail.
Speaker:So let me share with you how I'm using this,
Speaker:because I think it could help you as well.
Speaker:I have several businesses as most of you know,
Speaker:and I have multiple email accounts.
Speaker:So I have my personal account,
Speaker:which is just a free Gmail account.
Speaker:And then we have multiple emails for the ribbon print company.
Speaker:We also have multiple emails for gift biz on wrapped.
Speaker:Plus if you're getting email from me,
Speaker:it's probably from sue@sumoandhight.com.
Speaker:But the thing that I love and I'm able to do
Speaker:is merge this all into one mailbox.
Speaker:So I only go one place to see all of my
Speaker:emails. The different areas of my businesses are color-coded like gift
Speaker:biz. Unwrapped is color coded as green Sumo and height is
Speaker:yellow. And the ribbon print company is red so that anytime
Speaker:I need to look for a specific email,
Speaker:I can just go and look at the color codes.
Speaker:This makes it so easy.
Speaker:I also really,
Speaker:really I'm trying to get to inbox zero.
Speaker:There were maybe two days in my whole life when that
Speaker:actually happened,
Speaker:but my inbox,
Speaker:these days is much more manageable.
Speaker:And the way I'm doing this is through folders within Gmail.
Speaker:So I have a number of different folders categorized based on
Speaker:the content of the email.
Speaker:If I need to save them,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:some emails you can just respond to and then you can
Speaker:let them go.
Speaker:But I have emails for podcast guests.
Speaker:I have emails that are for some of the shows that
Speaker:I'm attending.
Speaker:There are personal emails,
Speaker:all different types of things.
Speaker:And I have folders on the side where I can categorize
Speaker:those emails.
Speaker:If I think I'm going to need to resource them later,
Speaker:otherwise they get deleted.
Speaker:The other things.
Speaker:These are not specific apps that I'm talking about as part
Speaker:of my aid here today.
Speaker:But since I am on Gmail,
Speaker:I also wanted you to know about two other things that
Speaker:apply within Gmail that I use regularly.
Speaker:One is boomerang,
Speaker:which allows you to write an email on a Sunday night
Speaker:and then have it delivered on Monday morning because heaven forbid
Speaker:you start training people that you're working on Sunday night,
Speaker:not a good thing in terms of bracketing and balancing it,
Speaker:putting boundaries around your time.
Speaker:The other really cool thing about boomerang is if there's an
Speaker:email that you get about an event,
Speaker:that's three weeks from now,
Speaker:you can have it disappear from your inbox and reappear a
Speaker:day or two right before the event.
Speaker:So it doesn't sit and take up space in your inbox,
Speaker:but it's going to come back to you at the exact
Speaker:perfect time.
Speaker:The other app I use connected with my Gmail account is
Speaker:BombBomb. Some of you who have gotten messages from me have
Speaker:already seen this in action.
Speaker:What it allows you to do is respond via email with
Speaker:a video message from you.
Speaker:I'll do this for my coaching students,
Speaker:people who have joined makers,
Speaker:MBA support issues for the ribbon print company or other places
Speaker:where I just want one-to-one contact love the fact that that
Speaker:connects with my Gmail account and can use it for personal
Speaker:messages of all sorts.
Speaker:Second on the list is Canva.
Speaker:I absolutely love Canva for so so many reasons I originally
Speaker:started using Canva just for what most people probably use it
Speaker:for social media posting.
Speaker:There are so many images available now,
Speaker:fonts available templates,
Speaker:so that if you're not a great designer,
Speaker:you can go choose a template and just replace images and
Speaker:text and messages that apply to your business.
Speaker:You can add in your own brand color,
Speaker:there's all of that.
Speaker:But since then pretty quickly found that it could replace going
Speaker:into Photoshop all the time and spending so much time there
Speaker:manipulating and adjusting all those layers Photoshop.
Speaker:I really only by very,
Speaker:very rare exception ever go into Photoshop anymore.
Speaker:Everything is done in Canva.
Speaker:Social media posts,
Speaker:my inspired daily planner that was all created in Canva.
Speaker:I'm now doing presentations in Canva.
Speaker:Some of my online courses have now been created in Canva
Speaker:and even video montages for personal use.
Speaker:So, so much capability there so much power,
Speaker:and guess what it's super fun to use as well.
Speaker:The other thing I'm doing in Canva,
Speaker:and I just figured this out recently is instead of uploading
Speaker:all of my images to that master file on the top,
Speaker:as I make folders I've already been doing so separating the
Speaker:work when I'm doing a presentation,
Speaker:for example,
Speaker:pretty quickly,
Speaker:I'm going to be doing a couple of presentations at some
Speaker:trade shows here near the end of the year.
Speaker:And as I'm finding images,
Speaker:pulling them from my camera,
Speaker:roll, pulling them from other photo subscriptions that I have now
Speaker:I'm storing them in the separate folders that apply to the
Speaker:project. Didn't realize I could do that before until now.
Speaker:So Canva,
Speaker:absolutely awesome for all the reasons that I just stated now,
Speaker:utilizing and accessing all of these apps requires passwords these days.
Speaker:Right? Well,
Speaker:my favorite go to password.
Speaker:Keeper is called last pass.
Speaker:I have over,
Speaker:I think last time I looked at 370 something passwords because
Speaker:you have bank passwords,
Speaker:you have product like vendor passwords.
Speaker:If you're entering into purchase product wholesale travel membership sites,
Speaker:shopping, there are swerved for entrance into literally everything these days.
Speaker:And last pass keeps everything organized for me.
Speaker:I can access it from my phone phone or my computers.
Speaker:And the other group thing about this is it's great for
Speaker:teams, my virtual assistant,
Speaker:my content manager,
Speaker:anybody who's doing any type of business and needs access to
Speaker:social media sites,
Speaker:the website,
Speaker:anywhere that they need to go,
Speaker:they can get access to it through LastPass without knowing my
Speaker:passwords. So super safe,
Speaker:super secure program.
Speaker:Absolutely love it.
Speaker:If you haven't checked it out last pass to store all
Speaker:your passwords,
Speaker:personal and business,
Speaker:that one pretty much runs in the background for me,
Speaker:unless I need to access it.
Speaker:If I'm creating a new password,
Speaker:it will automatically trigger up and pull in and say,
Speaker:Hey, Sue,
Speaker:do you want to save this into LastPass?
Speaker:Which of course I say yes,
Speaker:because everything gets saved there.
Speaker:Another thing that runs in the background is Carbonite Carbonite.
Speaker:It is a program that will store all your files for
Speaker:you. So you never have to worry if your computer crashes
Speaker:that you won't have access to your files.
Speaker:Carbonite allows me to sleep at night so that I know
Speaker:that my computers crash.
Speaker:I have access back to all of my information also,
Speaker:and this has just happened recently.
Speaker:I've had to change out a computer.
Speaker:And so by using Carbonite and having it programmed for that
Speaker:individual computer,
Speaker:I know that it's available for me in case of emergencies,
Speaker:as I'm sure recording here,
Speaker:I'm looking at the order in which I want to present
Speaker:all these to you.
Speaker:And I've just decided I'm saving my favorite one.
Speaker:And the one you probably don't know about until the very
Speaker:end, just to keep you in suspense,
Speaker:I guess.
Speaker:Okay. Next up on the list,
Speaker:Dropbox. Oh my gosh.
Speaker:We use Dropbox for everything and I'm not even kidding.
Speaker:When I say I access this all the time.
Speaker:It's kind of like a backup system for me.
Speaker:And then also a place where I'll store files that other
Speaker:people need to access.
Speaker:So backup system,
Speaker:for example,
Speaker:we'll put files there that maybe I'll need,
Speaker:if I'm out at a trade show and I need to
Speaker:share it with somebody,
Speaker:I can just access that file and email it to them.
Speaker:But it's already sitting in Dropbox.
Speaker:So I don't have to worry about finding it or figuring
Speaker:out where it is or calling back to the office for
Speaker:someone to forward it over to a customer.
Speaker:We'll also send up our final edited podcast versions up to
Speaker:a special Dropbox.
Speaker:So people who need to access that can do so.
Speaker:And then also some of the course documents with maker's MBA
Speaker:are more easily accessed in that manner versus inside the program
Speaker:because they might be documents that are only specific to a
Speaker:certain class.
Speaker:That's going through the program at that time.
Speaker:So everybody who's in each individual makers,
Speaker:MBA class then has access to a Dropbox folder that's specifically
Speaker:and only accessible to those who are in that class types
Speaker:of things.
Speaker:I'll put they're categorized in separate folders for all very different
Speaker:uses. The other great thing about this is if a document
Speaker:is revised,
Speaker:let's say Lori back at the office needs to change a
Speaker:payment plan for ribbon printers or something.
Speaker:Instead of her emailing me or sending it to me,
Speaker:she just uploads the revised and edited version right into Dropbox.
Speaker:So it's always accessible.
Speaker:She doesn't even have to tell me she did it.
Speaker:She just knows that that's where I'll go to access things
Speaker:and it'll be sitting there waiting for me.
Speaker:Okay. Moving on.
Speaker:I have three more tools that I want to tell you
Speaker:about, and let's see,
Speaker:I think the next one up is going to be smarter
Speaker:queue. So smarter queue is our social media scheduling app.
Speaker:I'll tell you why I use this one,
Speaker:but for the most part,
Speaker:what we do try to do is schedule within an app.
Speaker:We all know that apps like when you work within the
Speaker:services and the tools that they have provided good for you.
Speaker:So we are using business manager to schedule a lot of
Speaker:things on Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker:We're seeing scheduling our Pinterest posts right from within the tool
Speaker:as well.
Speaker:But the thing that I really like about smarter queue is
Speaker:it allows for evergreen content reposting.
Speaker:What I mean by that is if you have a post
Speaker:that then directs people over to a blog that you've created,
Speaker:and the content in that blog is good today,
Speaker:it's going to be good next year.
Speaker:And it's going to be good in the future.
Speaker:You put it in there once and it just repost on
Speaker:whatever schedule you've decided that it should be.
Speaker:You can select individual platforms that you want things posted to.
Speaker:Like we have certain things that automatically go into the private
Speaker:Facebook group,
Speaker:gift, biz breeze.
Speaker:We have other things that go into our public pages,
Speaker:all different types of things.
Speaker:And the flexibility there is fabulous.
Speaker:And I have team members who have access to it,
Speaker:how through the last pass password app so that they can
Speaker:access and get into smarter queue.
Speaker:Anytime they need to.
Speaker:Number seven on the list has to be my podcast app
Speaker:on my phone.
Speaker:I listened to podcasts all the time.
Speaker:Yes, you can call me a podcast junkie,
Speaker:not just for business,
Speaker:this learning,
Speaker:but for entertainment.
Speaker:Sometimes for the news,
Speaker:all different types of reasons.
Speaker:Why I access my podcast app I'm in there every day,
Speaker:multiple times a day,
Speaker:even in my short car ride to and from the office,
Speaker:my office is like seven minutes away from my office.
Speaker:But even then seven minutes on two times speed,
Speaker:you can get 15 minutes of a podcast listen to.
Speaker:So there's that?
Speaker:I bet nobody is surprised if you've know me or have
Speaker:been hanging out with me for any amount of time that
Speaker:that would have been on the list.
Speaker:And finally rounding this out is the one app that you
Speaker:may not know about.
Speaker:I'm going to guess that probably 95% of you are not
Speaker:familiar with this app.
Speaker:It's an app that you can download on your phone and
Speaker:it's called brain toss.
Speaker:And I use this to capture ideas,
Speaker:things that I want to remember on the fly.
Speaker:And the most important thing about this is it allows me
Speaker:to capture information that I want to remember,
Speaker:but it doesn't stop me with what I'm doing at the
Speaker:time or completely get me off task the project.
Speaker:You know how it is,
Speaker:you are in the middle of something and all of a
Speaker:sudden you think,
Speaker:oh my gosh,
Speaker:gotta remember to do this.
Speaker:Like I better just do it now.
Speaker:And then you get completely off task and you may or
Speaker:may not ever get back to what you were already doing.
Speaker:I use brain toss for this.
Speaker:Well, let me tell you how the app works.
Speaker:And then I'll give you a couple of examples of how
Speaker:I use it.
Speaker:When you pull up the app,
Speaker:you have the option to either talk into your phone,
Speaker:take a picture that you want to keep or write a
Speaker:note down really quickly.
Speaker:And when you do one of those three things,
Speaker:and then you press send,
Speaker:it sends you an email.
Speaker:And so then later when you see that email,
Speaker:you can take action accordingly,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:put it into your day timer,
Speaker:save that email for later,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:whatever is appropriate.
Speaker:Now here's how I'll use this.
Speaker:Let's say I'm out with a group of friends and someone
Speaker:tells me,
Speaker:have a great book or a great movie to watch.
Speaker:I'll just pull up my brain toss really quickly,
Speaker:hit audio,
Speaker:say the name of whatever it is that I want to
Speaker:press send.
Speaker:I'm done.
Speaker:It doesn't even interrupt the conversation for the most part,
Speaker:but I've captured the information and sends,
Speaker:it goes to my email.
Speaker:I'm going to see it again later.
Speaker:If I just put it in notes or somewhere,
Speaker:I might forget to even go back and ever look at
Speaker:that again.
Speaker:I'll also use it when I'm out walking.
Speaker:When I listen to podcasts,
Speaker:I'll often think of something that I want to remember.
Speaker:And instead of saving that whole podcast,
Speaker:when I'm at the end or forgetting where in the podcast,
Speaker:that particular point was talked about,
Speaker:I can just stop the podcast real quick,
Speaker:right there,
Speaker:go into my brain toss,
Speaker:say whatever I needed to say that I wanted to remember
Speaker:send it on the way.
Speaker:And then I can keep walking and keep listening.
Speaker:I'll use this out at trade shows.
Speaker:If I want to capture a picture,
Speaker:all different types of things,
Speaker:you can think of multiple applications for this.
Speaker:So if you've never heard of this,
Speaker:you definitely need to go check it out.
Speaker:It's called brain toss.
Speaker:All right,
Speaker:there, you have it.
Speaker:My eight apps that I use absolutely every single day.
Speaker:Let me list them for you again.
Speaker:So if you are with pen and paper and want to
Speaker:check them out,
Speaker:you can do so Gmail for email,
Speaker:consolidation, and productivity to get that inbox as low to zero
Speaker:as possible.
Speaker:But for sure,
Speaker:to a level of sanity,
Speaker:second Canva posting presentation,
Speaker:photo manipulation movies,
Speaker:any type of creative project that you can imagine can take
Speaker:place in Canva last pass for keeping and sharing of passwords
Speaker:Carbonite, to ensure that everything you have on your computer is
Speaker:kept safe.
Speaker:Dropbox for document sharing,
Speaker:updating and accessing smarter queue for social media,
Speaker:scheduling and posting,
Speaker:but in particular,
Speaker:evergreen posting my podcast app for continued learning and entertainment and
Speaker:bringing us home brain toss for capturing ideas in the moment.
Speaker:So you don't interrupt.
Speaker:The moment can live in the now,
Speaker:but access and use and act on information later there you
Speaker:have it.
Speaker:The eight apps that I use every single day with a
Speaker:couple of sideline LUNs thrown in for good measure.
Speaker:The really cool thing about this group of apps is that
Speaker:they all are used and intertwined together.
Speaker:And let me give you this example.
Speaker:I just figured this out as I was recording the podcast.
Speaker:So here you go.
Speaker:This particular podcast,
Speaker:I had the idea for it.
Speaker:So I sent myself a message in brain toss because I
Speaker:didn't want to forget that this is something that I want
Speaker:I need to do.
Speaker:Then I recorded it on my computer and always know that
Speaker:if heaven forbid something happened,
Speaker:there's a backup because I'm using Carbonite.
Speaker:Then whether it's me editing or my virtual assistant,
Speaker:we can get in there easily through last pass.
Speaker:Then once it's all edited,
Speaker:we do graphics in Canva.
Speaker:We store the final MP3 file in Dropbox.
Speaker:Then we schedule posts within smarter queue,
Speaker:send out a weekly email,
Speaker:telling everybody about the podcast and other important goings on at
Speaker:gift biz on wrapped.
Speaker:And then to listen to the show.
Speaker:I just pull up the podcast app and listen away now
Speaker:to be truthful.
Speaker:I don't really listen to my own shows.
Speaker:I listened to others,
Speaker:but it's an app that allows us to extend the message
Speaker:further. So in publishing a podcast episode,
Speaker:we go through and use all eight of the apps that
Speaker:I just shared with you here.
Speaker:Can you think of ways that you can integrate some,
Speaker:if not all of these,
Speaker:into your business for the most productive use of your time
Speaker:possible, we have a lot of living to do.
Speaker:It's not just all about the business.
Speaker:That's a wrap.
Speaker:I'm a get to the point kind of girl.
Speaker:And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek
Speaker:sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that dream
Speaker:of yours.
Speaker:Share your handmade products with us.
