When it comes to selecting the right tech programs and softwares for your business, a major consideration is your team and the role they’ll play within each tool! In today’s episode, Brooke Scott joins me to dive into what to consider when selecting tech for your business, how to navigate potential changes in the future, and the impact your team will have in your choices!
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Guest Bio:
Liz from Lux & Vita is a website designer turned OBM (aka Online Business Manager). Where she manages the people, processes, and projects for your business. There’s nothing she loves more than helping creative entrepreneurs build a business that works for them, not the other way around. She creates simple, sustainable systems that give you the freedom to grow your business while bringing consistency, organization, and fun to the things that weigh you down. Even if you’re not a “systems person.”
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Love Your Leads private audio training! Are you providing an experience for your leads that sets an expectation on when they’ll hear from you, provides them with tools that will help them easily say yes and book you, while also making them feel seen and heard? In my private audio training, you’ll learn how to love your leads and get more booked clients through an automated booking process.
Here are the highlights…
[1:27] Meet Brooke
[5:47] Lean Implementation
[6:57] Bucket Approach from the Top Down
[13:53] Choosing the Right Tech Stack
[21:45] Future Proofing Your Business
[23:34] Email Funnels for Your Business
[25:45] Systems for Solopreneurs vs. Teams
[27:56] Considerations When Choosing Tools
[35:49] Biggest Fuck Up
Mentioned in this Episode
Connect with Brooke
Email: brooke@projectgrowthmode.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/projectgrowthmode/
(Same) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookeascott/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/projectgrowthmode/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/projectgrowthmode
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bizgrowthmode
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@projectgrowthmode
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@projectgrowthmode
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello. Hello, and welcome back to the Business First Creatives podcast. Today I am chatting with Brooke Scott, a fellow systems set up aficionado. Now, I do wanna say we are gonna have a very nuanced conversation today.
One of the reasons that I wanted to have Brooke on the podcast is so that you guys can hear how differently. Different people approach creating systems for your business. It is not a one size fit all in terms of systems, and it’s actually not a one size fits all in terms of who you hire. So Brooke, good morning and welcome to my podcast.
How are you
Brooke: I’m, I’m doing so good. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Colie: Ah, okay, so let’s get this out of the way. Tell everyone what kind of systems you set up and who you serve.
Brooke: Sure. So in regards to the system setups that I do, I kind of leave it open. So whatever people are looking for, but I typically specialize in the CRM platforms, the project management platforms, your, your course creation platforms, any of those typically is like where I spend the majority of my time. And then also the integration aspects of that as well.
So whether that is, your onboarding and how you’re connecting, zaps from. whether you have HoneyBook or Dubsado to your click up for your client roster and all the things that need to happen, then we introduce Google Drive, all of those things. So, I, I dabble in a lot of different quote systems.
But yeah, that’s, what I typically do. And then, people who I serve also, I, I keep that open as well. As far as like, A good, description of those people would be like women entrepreneurs who are, coaches typically, um, course creators, creatives, funnel agencies, marketing agencies, people along those lines.
I have worked with copywriters in the past. I’ve worked with other niches as well. My approach to that is to just help women in business in general. Cause I mean, when it comes to. The systems and the tech and the integration and how things are moving in your business as far as your operations goes.
Everybody needs that, regardless of what kind of business you do have. So I like to approach it in a way that I can bring in other knowledge from other industries that I’ve worked with and be able to, approach a situation with a, a separate, a different kind of client, and be like, Hey, well I’ve, I’ve actually used this, this, and this.
Let’s try to implement this here and this. Type of business and see if that will work for you. So, it really opens the door for my optimization skills when it comes to that. So, yeah, that’s typically the people who I serve. I’m not really niche specific, but, my largest group of people is.
Coaches and course creators. When it comes to the educational aspect of things, I do, speak a lot to service providers. So all of those people are in my audience and I’m just, trying to provide the value that you know, these people need because regardless of who you are, what you do, it’s something that you need to know.
Colie: Yes, everyone needs systems. Brooke and I agree on this and I want to make sure that you guys picked up on this cuz Brooke will basically help everyone. And you guys know I don’t go that way. I mean, I. I gear all of my messaging towards photographers, and it’s because I’m leaning heavily. On my 10 plus years of experience being a photographer and using systems within my own business.
But while I am willing to help anyone set up systems, I do try to focus on one to two specific tools just because it helps me to make sure that I am optimizing and using my brain in the best way. So one of the parts of the conversation that Brooke and I are gonna have today is the strategy part. And so when someone contacts me for service, I am typically asking them how their business works, what they’re currently using, what’s not working for them.
But then I get into some very specific questions because I’m trying to figure out if the tools that I like to set up. We’ll work in their business. And of course, like you’ve mentioned, Abdo and HoneyBook, those are the ones that I will do setups in, in addition to a few other pieces to put it all together.
But like in general, that’s what I specialize in. So, Brooke, for you. When a client inquires with you, I’m sure it’s a very different process because you are not trying to figure out if specific tools will work for them. You’re trying to like figure out what they need and then basically make a suggestion to them.
So how does that work in terms of first thinking about the strategy and then trying to tie it together with the tools that you think will work best for that specific client?
Brooke: Yeah, so first I have that initial conversation of like where their current state is and where they want to be. So what I’m trying to figure out is, like you said, I’m not looking for a specific system. I am trying to figure out what’s going to work and what’s gonna be the most efficient way to get there.
So, From there, we basically reverse engineer from that goal and, you know, determine what we can do about it. That way we’re not, you know, only taking incremental steps through the process, but we’re keeping things connected to their bottom line. Since we’re talking, about those things and walking about those things, back to the goal.
A way that I do that is actually through the use of lean implementation. So lean process improvement techniques, and I use one called Cascading Metrics and I use one called, the Why Method. So either one of those, and I also use them together. Using the why method first. So going through that, why method you ask yourself, you know, what’s the goal?
You start there. Okay. We wanna ask ourselves why? Why do we wanna do that? Well, because this, okay, well, why is it that? Well, because this, well, why? Well, because this, and you, you do it about five times. And I mean, once you get to the bottom, you not only have an understanding of, you know, what you need to do, but you’ve uncovered how you can get there.
So once you. Start with that why approach and you figure out that then you can implement the cascading metrics. So the cascading metrics is a way to, gauge your KPIs so you can see how things are contributing to your bottom line and how things are contributing to your mission and vision and values, cuz that’s the most important thing, keeping things in alignment.
With those things. That way your business can operate smoothly, you can operate, you know, in alignment, feel good about it. And I mean, everything feels good across the board from the technical aspect to how you actually feel. So the way that you do that in the approach to cascading metrics for the strategy piece of it is you look at it through a bucket approach from the top down.
So what I mean by that is the first bucket would be your vision, mission, and values. The next is your executive goals. So strategically thinking about your financials and your budget, and then is your department goals. So your, let’s think of, you know, your operations department.
And then taking the step down from your department, you go into your team goals. So what type of communication you need to have, what’s the actual plan? What specific tasks need to be done and by who to be able to achieve that specific goal. And then the very, very last here is going to be your individual goals and what you actually contribute to that.
So in the why approach, we have identified, What we need to do and how we need to get there. In the cascading metrics approach. We have taken those actual things and divided it out and connected it to our bottom line and divided it out, you know, through our team. So that way everybody has a sense of what they need to do, you know, when they need to do it, and all of the things.
So in that approach to systems, you can keep things in alignment. Across the board and I mean, you’re focusing on, you know, the strategy piece. It’s not just when people come to me for systems, A lot of people have the misconception, it’s just setting something up that it’s not anything strategic, but I mean, you have to look at the operational aspect of how things are flowing in order to have something that works for you.
Otherwise, it’s not going to work for you and it’s gonna be a waste of time and money. And my like, goal, whatever I am, approaching things is to work with that lean perspective in mind. So cutting the waist, cutting the fluff. You know, if we don’t have to click here 15 times, we’re not gonna do it. Cuz that’s a waste of my time.
So, you know, we want to. Get rid of the wasted time, get rid of the wasted effort, wasted energy, wasted money. So if we’re using something that we don’t need to be using because something else we have can do that as well, or we don’t need to have that specific initiative in place, then we don’t need to be spending money on that.
So, I mean, you’re tightening everything up when you’re focusing through that lean lens of things.
Colie: Okay, so that was a lot.
And let me say that, I think, oh, no, no, no, apologies. I think that I’m finding this part of the conversation really interesting because in 2023, I think I’ve started taking a slightly different approach to my systems than I did in the past, and that is instead of figuring out everything that I can do for a client when they come through my doors, I have started thinking about the simplest systems that I can give someone.
Because what I have found is that while I think that you should do A, B, C, D, E, F, G, You actually only need like A, B, C, D in order to get it done. I’m trying to limit overwhelming my clients with systems be, especially those that are like brand new, like those that are not really coming to me for like the optimization of the systems that they already have in place.
If they are getting brand new systems, some of them are getting overwhelmed. By parts that I don’t think that they should get overwhelmed by, and it’s parts that they really don’t need. Like I’m trying to make a conscious effort to, you know, lean in and give my clients like the first few steps to optimizing their systems.
And then when you’ve got a really good handle on that, I’m happy to help you introduce new systems. In some cases I will even tell them like, and once you’ve done this, I’ve got this set up for you to do next. You can just start using it, but. It’s just one of the things that I realized that I was doing a disservice to my clients, and it sounds like you feel this way the same.
You wanna make sure that there aren’t extra things inside of their systems that are sa, you know, that are costing them time and money to implement that they really don’t need. And so I know when you and I were having our initial conversation, I was like, no. Oh my God. That’s what I wanna talk about. I wanna talk about the fact that it is strategy first.
And tools second, which is why I am obsessed with the fact that like you’ll basically just set up any tool. You wanna know what they need, what is gonna drive their KPIs, what is going to allow them to do all of the tracking before you actually create a tech stack for your clients. So in that vein, so someone contacts you so.
And you’re having your initial, let’s call it a consultation call. I don’t really like to call them sales calls cuz it’s really an alignment call like
Dowey Jive,
Brooke: Oh, I love that. I mean, I, I’ve been wondering about like, changing mine cuz like, I, I’ve been struggling with like, the, is it a discovery call? Like what are we discovering? You know what I mean? Like, is it a coffee chat, like, alignment call Sounds amazing. I’m gonna steal that. If you’re cool with that.
I’m, I
Colie: with that.
I mean, I think I’ve got like a, a little reel on Instagram where I talk about the fact that like my, my consultation calls are not sales calls. And of course sometimes people are like, yeah, but then you get the people that wanna pick your brains. Well, then you have to tell them, yeah, no, if you hire me, like that’s what we’re gonna do.
But like, they’ll back and forth that initial chat is just to make sure that you get along. That your values align, and then also that you know what they need, you are able to provide. Now, in your case, What you provide is way wider than what I will do. And so the alignment part for me is more about tools than it would be, I mean, of course we have to get along, but in general, like I have very strict, I mean, for example, you’ll understand this.
When someone comes to me and they tell me that they have a team,
I’m like, okay, wait. Full stop. I need you to tell me what every person on your team currently does. How your scheduling works, how your communication works, because the two tools that I typically work in Dubsado and HoneyBook are not great for teams.
And so if you answer questions in a particular way, I’m like, okay, the tools that I would use are not great for you. And so here are my suggestions and here’s like people that I think can help you set that up. But it’s not me. I’m not the one.
Brooke: Yeah.
Colie: But, so once you have the call, how is it that you are creating that tech stack for them?
Like, How is your actual system set up laid out? Because you do the con, you do the consultation, you do the alignment call, they decide they love you, Brooke, they’re gonna hire you. And then I’m assuming that you have like an actual strategy call, but like where in your process do you actually make the proposal for the actual tools that it’s gonna take?
And how many of your clients are coming to you with a tech stack? Already that you are then encouraging them to like discard and go with something new,
Brooke: Yeah, I mean, well that situation happens pretty frequently, but when it comes to, you know, someone coming on new, where we get started, of course, is first just having that conversation of their expectations, what they want to happen. and we wouldn’t go too deep into the strategy at the beginning.
Like we wouldn’t go probably into like the whys or the metrics that I was talking about. We would just kinda kind of get like an, an overview. And then I would ask them, you know, what do you have now? All of that. Do you have any systems you have in mind that you would like to be using in the future?
Cuz they might have, a grasp on some kind of knowledge or education for, from something else that they might wanna be using. And then we just get really factual about that. So for example, let’s say I’m onboarding you, you have a funnel build coming up at the end of the year, you want me to set up Flodesk for you?
What I’m going to say is, okay, yeah, we can definitely set up Flodesk for you, but. Here are the limitations of the platform when it comes to funnel builds. So when it comes to funnel builds with Flodesk, you can’t get specific with your tagging inside of your emails. You can, however, do workarounds and make segments.
It’s going to be a little bit more, tech techy and have zaps connected here and there. So it will be more of a. Quote process when it comes to third party integrations, and you’re not gonna be able to appropriately tag your leads in the right way that you want to or track for clicks or any of those things.
So, just like. Wanna let you know that upfront. You have this funnel build scheduled and we want to get you to the place where you are tracking those metrics and, have everything set up in the most efficient way possible. Here’s another platform that I would suggest, whether that’s Active Campaign or ConvertKit, and how that is a replacement for this one.
And how that will benefit your funnel better and how we will save time now by starting with that platform and not Flodesk. So, because if you’re starting with flow desks and then you build up a list over a year, now we have to go through a platform migration. And that’s not only just. Exporting and importing contacts.
You have to optimize as you go. Clean things up. Move people where the tags, where they’re supposed to be set up, new automations. It’s a whole thing. It’s a whole thing. Not that you’re the one doing it, but it, it’s still another like thing that you have to go through. And also you have to account for the time, for, you know, your new platform, whether that is active campaign or ConvertKit to warm up.
Two, you sending out all of the frequent emails that you do and you know, you might have, people, people’s emails now start going to spam. I mean, there, there are a lot of things to consider when it comes to that. So what I would do is just give them all of that information as much as I can. You know, I’m not perfect.
I don’t know all the things. There are tons of things that I don’t know, but what I do know, I will, I will give you the, my, all the knowledge that I have, so that way you can make the most informed decision. And if you say, Brooke, Yes, I, I, I am having a funnel or I am creating a funnel at the end of the year, but right now I really just wanna use Flodesk cuz I like it and it’s pretty, I’ll be like, okay, great.
Sounds good. We’ll get you set up in Flodesk in the best way that I can set it up for you for this. And during that process I’ll make sure to really, really get intentional about how I’m setting it up so that way when you get to that phase of a funnel build, it will be like, Better. It’s not gonna be the perfect, you know, you know, uh, operations and organization that you want, but you’ll be able to operate with it.
And I’ll also, you know, record you looms whenever we wrap up on how you can adjust here or there or um, anything like that. So give them all the education I can make them, have them lead that conversation, have them lead that decision. Cuz I mean, at the end of the day, They’re the one who’s paying for the platform.
I can’t twist your leg and make you buy active campaign. What I can tell you is, as someone who mainly focuses in funnel integration and build and setups, and I’m, I’m in the platforms every single day and I’m, I’m building funnels in, in multiple different, like I am building funnels and convert, I’m building funnels in I’m, I’m building funnels in Drip like.
Everywhere else, like, I know this because I’m in it all of the time, so I’m, I’m giving you the most informed decision. And what you do with that is your decision. And if you wanna approach it and stay, stay with Flow Desk, great. If you get to the point of scaling and you need to get you like switch, that’s gonna be another conversation as well because I mean, you’re not only.
Needing a platform migration, at that point you are scaling and when you, when you get to the point where you’re scaling it, it gets quicker and quicker and quicker and quicker, and you. You almost have to basically stop everything that you’re doing to have to either rebuild or, you know, direct your focus to getting that fixed instead of focusing on continuing to scale.
So my whole intention is to keep you where you wanna be, keep you on the path moving forward, and. You know, tidy things up, you know, behind the scenes as we go, and make sure that everything, can be connected and is in alignment for that long-term goal, not just for the right now. Yes, we look at the priorities, broken down through all the things and what’s prior priority for this month or.
For the quarter, whatever. But based on the whole yearly goal, whole yearly like initiative and whatever it entails like the funnel. We wanna make sure that we’re keeping that in mind and whatever we’re doing in the meantime, we should be chipping away at for that later on. So that way it’s not like a huge deal when we get there.
But I also wanna give the disclaimer of like, the way that you and I approach things is. One way isn’t right, and one way isn’t wrong either. So I mean, you can definitely just be like, no, I, I work in these platforms. This is all I set up, yada yada this is my preference on what I do.
Yes, I can do it. The other thing is great, that’s your business. And I mean, that’s absolutely okay. The way that I approach it. The reason why I approach it the way I do is because I have that lean training background to where I can help with that strategic piece and be able to guide in different areas.
And I have the, education and knowledge from the different platforms I’ve worked in with funnel builds. So I have all of that already inside me. Why not utilize it and expand more? So, I mean, you can approach it either way. It, it honestly doesn’t matter either way. Like is. Not right, not wrong. It’s totally okay.
I, so I just wanna make that disclaimer for anyone out there, if you’re struggling with, you know, picking what you specifically want to serve with. So if you are service provider and you’re trying to decide if I should offer all the things with systems, or if I should say no, I’m a, I’m a click up expert.
I mean, Do what you want. I mean it what? Whatever. Yeah. Whatever’s gonna be in alignment for you. Whatever is gonna feel better for you, whatever’s gonna help you be successful at the end of the day, I. What that’s, that’s on you. That’s whatever you wanna do. And that’s, that’s wonderful and perfect and great and I commend you for that.
You don’t have to do all the things. And I mean, there may come a day where I’m like, I, I mean there will come a day when I niche down probably and be like, okay, I’m tired. I’m going to do this, this, and this. So, I mean, they’ll best, like advice I could give in that perspective is, Listening to yourself, listening to what feels right in the moment as the one who’s giving the service and providing that service.
Cuz I got started as a va. I transitioned to an O B M I transitioned to a funnel integrator. I transitioned to, you know, doing more operational aspects. I, I’m transitioning the entire time I’ve been in business, you know, almost three years now. And I mean, that’s a very, very short amount of time. But I’ve done so much.
So, I mean, I think it’s really important to just. You know, listen to yourself, lean into what feels right, and let that guide you, because then you’re gonna be in alignment with what you’re doing and you know where you are. Sorry to like go on a tangent. Oh my
Colie: It’s okay.
So one of the things that, uh, was just sticking out to me as you were speaking is the aspect of future proofing someone’s business. And I do think that that’s a huge part of what we are providing as like systems strategist, systems educator.
Is sometimes you have short term goals and a tech stack that may work for you now that is not going to serve you in the future, especially when you start to scale.
And so one of the things that I know from working with like solopreneurs is a lot of them can’t imagine the scaling part. They’re like, oh no, I mean, I’m doing really great right now. Like, this is what I want. And it’s funny, honestly, it’s hysterical that you started with the flow desk example because I just.
Left Flodesk in January and moved over to ConvertKit.
But one of the reasons that I did that was, as you mentioned, I got tired of not being able to do self segmentation in my emails and like every time you wanted to see analytics in flow desks, it takes like five clicks. Now, could I make Flodesk work?
Absolutely. I had made it work for a while, but now that I am starting to guess what Build funnels guys,
Brooke: Yeah. Wow. I.
Colie: was figuring. You did. I was realizing that, uh, flow desks was no longer worth the headache. I love flow desks. It is beautiful. And since I work with a lot of photographers, I typically don’t recommend that they have to leave flow desks, like the emails were created for you visual artists.
And so unless you are doing a lot of funnels, a lot of tagging, a lot of segmentation, you probably don’t need the features of a convert kit or an active campaign, but, If I know a photographer is going to start offering education in the future and they’re going to have funnels, and guys, I just wanna make sure that everybody knows what we’re talking about when we’re talking about funnels.
Cause I just realized some people in my audience might not know what we’re talking about. Guys. A funnel can be as simple as you have a freebie. Like on the photography side of my business, I have a freebie for what to pack and take to the hospital when you’re getting ready to have your baby. When they download that freebie, there are things that happen after, like maybe I send them a welcome sequence, maybe I get them added into my newsletter.
Maybe I tag them depending on, you know, where they are, when they’re due, all those kinds of things. So funnels is just a really fancy way of saying bringing people into your business and serving them. Until they become clients, and then of course continuing to serve them after. But that’s a fancy, you know, that’s a very simplistic way of describing what a funnel is.
We all have funnels. If you have people coming into your business, you have a funnel of some kind, you just may have never heard it described in that manner.
Brooke: Right. Absolutely. And I mean, it’s also the guiding them through like their specific path of how they came in. So I mean, if they opted into this freebie, then we wanna nurture them a little bit based on that freebie topic. If they came in on another, we wanna educate them on that. But also, you know, putting them where they need to be in our organization in the background, so that way when we have launches, we can target the right people based on what they downloaded, based on what they’re interested in.
Because we don’t wanna. Blast out information to people that, like, you know, didn’t specifically opt in for this type of offer in general. You know, we don’t wanna bombard them with that, but yeah, it’s, it’s really guiding them through everything that you talked about in a way that is, targeted towards what they like, opted into.
Colie: You’re used to working with like coaches and I feel like the people that you work with tend to have teams. Versus the people that I tend to work with. I mean, most of them are solopreneurs. Some of them may have like a social media marketing person or a virtual assistant, but like they don’t have full fledged teams.
So I, I think you’ve already touched on it, but I’m gonna ask you anyway. What do you see is a big difference between creating systems for a solopreneur versus creating systems for someone who has a larger team in place?
Brooke: I would say, I mean, one to start off with, like, that’s like obvious is the education piece of it. So I mean, you’re not just teaching someone and setting something up, for one person, you are now. Teaching a group of X amount of people and needing to have multiple, multiple conversations so that way everybody can understand the grasp of whatever you’re doing.
So that way things can still operate and flow, you know, as you go. So whenever I’m working with a team versus a, you know, one-to-one aspect, I’m probably going to have a lot more SOPs that I create. I’m probably going to have a lot more, you know, things that I give them or things that I’m explaining where.
Things that I’m walking ’em through, giving them multiple other scenarios because we not only want to give a team what they need to be working on, so that way, I mean, they understand how to use it, but we also want them to understand in a way that they can optimize moving forward in a way that works for their business.
So yes, we’re gonna also give that to the other person, uh, who is just like the lunch one person, but it’s gonna be a little bit more advanced or more heavy on the like, Let me help you type situation for the team itself.
Colie: Yeah, and so. How, I’m wondering like from a tech perspective, are there any major differences or major decisions that you make if you know that someone is o is a solopreneur and maybe they outsource things to someone outside of their company versus someone having a larger internal, Team. Have there been any other like, oh my gosh, you didn’t think about this, but now that I know that you have a team, we should consider this When we are building out your strategy and when we are selecting the tools that will most efficiently help you.
Because like as I said, like when someone comes to me for a team, I’m like, no, full stop. You probably don’t need Dubsado I probably wouldn’t recommend HoneyBook, but tell me the other parts of your business so that I can see if I can, you know, make some recommendations cuz that’s definitely not my strong suit.
But I do feel like there are tools that are much better suited for people who have teams versus like the solopreneur.
Brooke: Yeah, I think it goes back down to what niche they’re in, what, you know, their overall goal is, how they’re operating their team now. What do they have in their system stack now? So, I mean, there’s a lot of considerations to think of before you even say, oh, okay, well, I know that you have a team, let’s do that because think through the, the process of like their mind and how they, how they have things set up now, so that way I can help them, optimize moving forward.
But I do know that whenever you have a larger team, you’re probably going to have a lot more. Tech involved. And you’re also going to need, probably a higher package of each type of tech because you need people to have multiple access pieces. Like you might have, I know on click up you have to pay, you know, X amount of dollars per person unless it’s a guest or whatever.
So you have to take that and into consideration as well. So it’s not just implementing something and paying for what it is, it’s implementing something, paying for what it is, and either sharing your passwords with everybody or everybody needs access to it. In their own like way, which means you have to pay for five extra people, and that’s a whole nother expense.
So, I mean, there’s just a, there’s a lot to consider honestly, whenever you have a team versus, one person. So I would definitely, Probably sit down in a more strategic aspect with that person to really hash things out. So that way, you know, we’re, we’re really cutting things close because just when it comes to like money in general, you don’t wanna be investing in something that like not everybody is like using.
So I mean, if you’re using like the bare minimum of something that you’re paying for, okay, well let’s just. Move that over somewhere else because we can get rid of that if we’re not, if everyone on the team is not using that, we don’t need to have that. I mean, yes, you have your specific team members who are, you know, either a VA or a, you know, a creative or whatever.
They have their things that they work in, but we also want the platforms that work for everyone as well, and really maximize on those. So, I mean, like I said, it just goes back to, I. Who they are, who they serve, what they’re doing, what their goal is. And I mean, then we just really take it from there. And I mean, that’s, I hate to say that cuz that’s like such a generic answer and, but like, I feel like that’s almost my answer for a lot of these things is because I do work in that capacity and it gets my mind turning and I’m like, okay, well now I’m, whenever you’re asking me these questions, I’m, I’m asking myself questions.
Well, I need more context to be able to like answer that. So what, what I’m saying is like, it’s definitely a. Custom approach, but we can get you to where you wanna be and we can optimize it, we can trim it down and it’ll be good.
Colie: But So Brooke, I mean I, you think that you gave a very generic answer, but let me tell you that you didn’t. Here’s what I pulled from that. I realized that it’s custom. I realized that that’s your actual expertise. Like I can’t tell you what I would do until I hear all of these other things. But the one thing that you just said, again, I’m gonna go back to like.
Getting with a system specialist so that you can future proof your business.
It makes absolutely no sense for you to build all of these systems in. Click up. If you imagine that in the future you’re going to have a team of like four people, and if everyone actually needed a paid seat in order to complete their task, and then paying for all of those seats is gonna put you way out of budget.
Maybe you should reconsider signing up with click up in the first place. Like I feel like that is a lot of value that you would give someone in that. Okay, so like you said, the bigger the team, it’s likely to cost you more in your tech stack, but I don’t think that I’ve ever really thought about telling someone that upfront, like it’s just you now, but when you get all of these people added to your team, this is what your tech stack is going to eventually cost you.
Like let’s go back to the email. One of the things that you said that was amazing is, yeah, I can make Flodesk work for you, but you’re going to need an integrator. You’re going to need like Zapier in order to connect Flodesk to everything.
and people don’t think about how much that’s gonna cost them
in the
Brooke: not just, yeah, I mean, if you’re doing that path specifically, you’re not just going to need the basic free plan five zaps. You need multi-step zaps. You need the next step up plan. I mean, that’s probably the minimum, which is probably gonna cost you what, 30 bucks? I mean, it’s still 30 bucks, but I mean, it’s still 30 bucks.
You know what I mean?
Colie: Well, I mean, but when you start to add those things up, like, okay, Zapier went from being free to, and girl, I think you’re, I, I think you’re minimizing it. I think you need to pay the $49 a month. So like that’s a huge jump. When you think about you went from paying $0 to $600. Just so that you could keep Flodesk.
So in that case, flow desks is not costing you either $19 a month or $38 a month,
depending on if you got that 50% deal, it is costing you that. Plus Zapier. So like I used to have a quiz funnel. I don’t anymore,
Brooke: Mm-hmm.
Colie: but one of the things that I was thinking about when I had my quiz funnel was in order to get the segmentation data, I couldn’t get the bare minimum of interact.
I had to go up because I had an email. System that did not natively integrate with interact. So it’s not just the cost of the one piece of software. That’s, that’s what I want you guys to take from this conversation. And sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. And so when you come to a systems expert like myself or like Brooke, we are gonna help you see the whole picture and we’re also gonna help you future proof, so that Okay.
It’s great. And I know that you’re thinking that you’re gonna be paying, you know, $300 in tech fees a month now, but I’m telling you that when your email list gets over a thousand, when you add two more team members, which is your goal in the next 12 months, your monthly cost is going to go from this to this automatically in addition to paying those two people.
So it’s big picture. It’s big picture, guys.
Brooke: It really is. I mean, in that specific example, think about active campaign. Yes. It’s a, it’s a little bit pricier already, but that their packages are based on. People like contacts. So if that means I’m integrating to Active Active Campaign to create this massive funnel, and this is my goal number of leads, now you have to consider that goal number of leads because now your contacts are going up that amount, which means you are going to have to pay even more.
And active campaign is a yearly charge, so that means it’s going to take, you know, your annual bill from, you know, one to $200 to a couple hundred dollars. You know what I mean? So I mean, You have, you really have to account for all of that. And I feel like people, they don’t get that technical when it comes to, oh, I just need this platform.
Oh, I just need this system. Oh, so and so said I need this system. I’m just gonna get it. No, like you need to break it down. We, we, we need to, it needs to work for you. It needs to be in alignment with you. You need to be able to operate it and understand it. And then it needs to not be wasting like, like you money or time or any of those things.
Colie: I mean, I have a saying like, just do what Coley says. However, you cannot just listen to my podcast or go to my YouTube channel or read a blog post. Like, guys, when I say do what Coley says, sometimes you have to actually have an individual conversation with me. I am not telling everyone that the way that I do things is for everyone.
For photographers cover is like 80% of you, but. You do have to ask because everybody deserves and needs systems that are customly crafted together for their business. Yeah.
Brooke: Don’t just throw something else into the mix just to have it, or just because someone said that this is like what they recommend, well that’s great, but let’s see if it’s gonna work for
Colie: for you.
Brooke: Yeah.
Colie: Uh, Brooke, our conversation has been amazing and we are gonna close this interview by me asking you the one question that I swear everybody tunes in to here, and that is, what was the biggest fuck up in your business? What did you learn from it, and how did you grow?
Brooke: So being a systems and tech person, I’m gonna tell you I run into that all of the time. So it’s not just a, you know, one big situation that kind of like messed everything up for me. So, There are multiple situations of where I run into things as an integrator, where things don’t work, things aren’t connected, right?
Things messed up. Everything else. The email didn’t go out on time, the people didn’t get tagged, the segment was wrong. It happens all of the time and it happens because, I mean, we’re human user error, you know, setting things up. Sometimes it doesn’t. Capture, sometimes the system is wrong and sometimes it tech is wrong.
It just, you know, errors out or the platform’s being glitchy, whatever. Sometimes, like I said, human user error. The way that I approach that is to really make sure in my process I’m, I’m going through like laser focused, making sure everything’s, you know, triple checked. I’ve tested it multiple times, we’re good and grand.
But when I do run into those situations, I mean, yeah, it really, really sucks cuz I mean, I. You know, you wanna be providing, you know, five star experience and then whenever the most simple thing goes haywire, like the email formatting was like, I. Messed up the client’s upset because that’s not, you know, what they want to be, you know, putting out into the world.
And that comes back on me where it’s like, you know, that’s like the smallest thing. Like, why didn’t that, why didn’t that work? I tested it multiple times, so instead of like beating myself up about it, it’s, you know, I’m gonna test it, you know, one more extra time each time. Another thing I guess, here we go.
Here’s the specific example in this one that I’m talking about. One time I had tested an email multiple times. When it did go out, the formatting was a little wrong. Now, this flash forward months and months and months, another client, not the same situation happens, but I’m running into it in the testing phase and I’m like, what is going on?
So this is an active campaign specifically. So during that time, they just had like one email builder as far as like the templates you can use. Now they have like two, two different ones you can use. And this person was using the new one and. The reason why it was messing up is cuz the global settings were wrong.
So it wasn’t ever set up to begin with, with the right font, the right size font, the right colors, any of that, the right padding, all of the things. So whenever I was testing it, sometimes it looked right, sometimes it looked wrong. So I was able to troubleshoot that, fix the global settings, and now the testing phase is so much easier.
But I mean, that’s just one example of like that finally coming full circle and feeling good. But just. As a integrator in tech, in systems, it literally happens all the time. It is, it sucks. It’s devastating sometimes. I mean, even the smallest things, and I try to not beat myself up over that. I’m an Enneagram six, so I, I’m always in my feels, so I have to really make sure I’m not like, really worrying about it.
With that being said, I’m just, I’m really intentional about how I approach things. Cause I wanna make sure I’m doing it right, I’m testing it and it’s coming out the way that I want to for every single client.
But, you are gonna run into those times so you not only have to give yourself grace in that, You know, situation, but also open up the door for communication and,
just an open and honest conversation with your client about the situation that’s happening in the testing phase, or if whatever went haywire, so that way they can understand what happened, how it happened, and what you’re going to do about it. Cuz at the end of the day, what they wanna hear is, what’s the fix?
How are you, how is this not gonna happen in the future? They don’t wanna hear, well, I messed it up and I’m really sorry, da da da. They wanna hear that and. Now, this is how it’s set up in the future. It’s gonna be totally okay, blah, blah, blah, whatever. I apologize for this situation. It’s not, you know, I don’t know what hay wire, but I definitely can make sure that in the future this isn’t gonna happen.
So that’s kind of like the, the generalized answer I can give you is in this role, it happens all the time and you kinda have to run with it.
Colie: Yeah, I mean, but I think that what all of us should take away from that is number one, if you haven’t listened to episode 60 where I brought Caitlyn Deco on to talk about. Enneagram types and how it’s related to you running your
business. Please
Brooke: It’s
Colie: listen to that episode.
Brooke: it’s so related. I mean, take, take all the personality exams, take all of them. Because once I took, you know, my strengths, my Enneagram, my M B t I, all of the things, you know, now I’m, I’m more fine tuned with how I’m hardwired to show up and I can lean into that and it feels better. So def recommend that.
Colie: And the second thing that I’m gonna say from what Brooke said is if you take nothing away, well let’s, let’s do two things. The two takeaways that I want you to have from my conversation with Brooke is, number one, there is not a one size fits all system for everyone. It has to be customized. You have to take a deep look at your business and see the big picture before you start to build systems and before you start to select your tools.
The second thing that I wanna say that she said is everyone should test their systems. And even though you have paid someone like an integrator or a system strategist to build your systems for you before you make them live, you should test them one more time. Every opportunity that you have, you should be testing your systems.
Brooke: Agreed. Always have that last quality check. You got to, okay.
Colie: All right, Brooke, for the listening audience, can you tell them where they can find out more information about you and your services?
Brooke: Absolutely. So you can find me on Instagram. My handle is at Ops dot Analyst dot brook. That’s typically where I show up the most. I do have other social platforms that you can probably find from my Instagram, so if you want to connect there. Absolutely, let’s do it. But I’m, I definitely show up more in real time on Instagram so we can chat there about all of the things.
Yeah, so if you wanna connect with me and learn more about what I do, I, I share, all the things that I’m working on. I share a lot of educational content. That’s kind of like my, my focus is making sure that I’m at least putting, that out there. And I’m, I’m heavily leaning into my blog right now, so you can Yeah.
Check that out.
Colie: All right, Brooke, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This was an amazing conversation, everyone. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.
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