Small Business Bestie
Entrepreneurship is hard, and sometimes we could use a friend to walk a mile in our shoes. Small Business Bestie is here to provide that friendship, support, and inspiration that small business owners need from time to time.
Small Business Bestie
38: Transforming Your Small Business with Tech Insights from Carrie Downey
Discover how adopting the right technology can transform your small business as we welcome Carrie Downey from Clarity Co. to Bestie Bites. With her wealth of expertise, Carrie shares how tools like Monday.com can streamline operations and keep your business on the cutting edge. Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by the rapid pace of tech advancements or just looking for ways to enhance efficiency, Carrie's insights will guide you toward solutions that allow you to focus on what truly matters. Hear about the generational shift in tech adoption and how a seamless customer experience can be the key to retaining top talent, all while ensuring your business thrives. 💯😜
We also tackle building a member directory for the Small Business Bestie community. Traditional methods like Google Forms have limitations, and we explore how Monday.com can offer a more intuitive and interactive experience with advanced search and filter options. Prioritizing technology💻 investments can lead to significant growth, and Keri encourages listeners to consider the long-term benefits of efficient systems. Finally, don't miss the opportunity for a complimentary exploratory call with Clarity Co., where tailored solutions for optimizing your business workflows are just a conversation away. Join us for an episode packed with actionable insights and valuable advice!
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Small Business Bestie is edited by Bourbon Barrel Podcasting
Hey everybody and welcome back to another episode of FestiBites, and today I'm really excited to interview and chat with my good friend, keri Downey with Clarity Co. I know that she's going to bring a lot of value to all of my small business besties today. So, keri, take just a second and tell us who you are and what you do.
Speaker 2:Hi, thank you for having me, michelle. I'm so excited to be here. I've been listening to your podcast and it's wonderful. So my business, clarity Co, specializes in helping other small businesses take advantage of technology so that they can operate efficiently and productively as possible.
Speaker 1:Well, I will tell everybody, today is a perfect example that we all need a little help in this. I consider myself somewhat tech savvy, but Mandi has been like one example after another of all the ways that I can prove my processes, so I think this is like divine timing to be talking with you.
Speaker 2:Well, you're certainly not alone. Most business owners that I talk to will say, like technology is not their forte. It's not usually the thing they devote their time and attention to, so it's pretty common.
Speaker 1:I would say so just kind of off the top. Can you tell us, like in your words, in your experience, why is keeping up with technology important for business owners?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say it's important because it's intended to save you time and help you eliminate the not-so fun tasks in a business. You know most business owners get into business because they're passionate about one thing or another, whether it's a product or a service. They're delivering, and they want to spend their time doing that right. They don't want to spend their time with all the redundant menial type tasks that they get bogged down with, quite honestly. So I would say it's important to get systems in place so that you can free up your time to do the things you really love in your business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes total sense. I again like I'm right there with everybody slugging along and there's so many times that I thought, man, if I had a better system for this, it would save me so much time and I could like be out there connecting with people and helping build the community, but instead I'm stuck here working a spreadsheet to death or something I hear you. So tell me, how do you work with businesses to help them improve their technology? Like, what does it look like for you in a client experience?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure so the work that we do is to learn about the business and the types of processes that they have in place, so that we can then take that information and apply it to the technology that's going to help either speed things up, make it more efficient with automation, or creating a better customer journey or customer experience, because a lot of customers are quite honestly, they're used to the conveniences of technology. Right, a lot of folks are shopping on Amazon, purchasing their groceries through an app. Nowadays, you know, there's a lot of technology in our lives in many ways, and so when you're a business that doesn't make the journey or the experience for a customer smooth and easy, it kind of stands out nowadays, you know, and so our work is designed to help think through those processes with business owners and offer ideas and suggestions about how they could be automating more of it or making it easier for not only their customer but also their team, so that their team can feel successful in their work.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's a great point that we oftentimes get so caught up on what's best for the customer and how do we make it easier for them, and we forget that also making sure that we're taking care of our people so that they're productive and able to have efficient workflows and to be able to retain good talent.
Speaker 2:Companies really need to be thinking about how to up their technology game in order to attract and retain good teammates.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, I'm just wondering in your experience like consulting with people and talking with people in this front day in and day out, do you find that we're kind of in that strange paradigm shift where previous generations are kind of trying to get used to using new technology but the technology has come in so fast that I feel like when I talk to people, it's like they're either super resistant to it, like I'm just going to go out with a bang and knock the ass over. Yeah, you know, the technology is just progressing so quickly like it's almost like you can't get on the train.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean for folks that are more tech savvy, obviously, then it's a little easier for them. But I totally agree that the generation of folks who didn't necessarily grow up with technology aren't necessarily comfortable using it. There is some resistance there. But you know, I consider myself to be of the older generation I'm almost 50, right and I have learned self-taught myself in technology and, because of my background is in social work, I really have a tendency to be able to meet people where they are. If they're resistant and uncomfortable, I want to help make it a smooth transition for them and just help them get comfortable so that it isn't kind of this, you know, digging the heels in.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so when you work with clients, you don't have like a particular software that you represent or anything like that, are you? You're kind of like I do actually, oh, you do, yeah, I do, tell us about that, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I partnered with mondaycom, which is an all-in-one solution. It offers a CRM, a project management tool. They even released recently Monday Service and Monday Dev, which is for research and development businesses. There's a lot of modules that come with Mondaycom, so much so that businesses can pretty much run the majority of their operation from one platform. And it integrates with Google and Microsoft and so you can kind of pull in your calendar, your email, you know, all that stuff into the platform, which is really nice. And I chose to partner with Mondaycom because of its versatility and I really do feel strongly that varied industries, you know, can benefit from using it. And I love it because it's customizable and folks can make it do what they want it to do. And that's what my team specializes in is showing people what it's capable of and also helping build it or implement it so that it can be just precisely what your business needs.
Speaker 1:So how interesting. I love that. I know I've had like a tiny bit of experience with mondaycom and just the tiny little bit that I've seen I've been very impressed with how user-friendly it is and it kind of has it very, even for someone like me who I kind of consider myself a little tech averse just because I try to keep up but it moves so fast you know Well, one of the benefits of Monday is that it is user-friendly, and that's actually one of the criteria that was important to me when I was choosing a software to partner with and really get behind.
Speaker 2:You know, their customer service is fantastic. It's user-friendly. It's considered a no-code user-friendly software. So that was an important criteria for me, because I was working in a number of other softwares prior to making the decision to niche into JustMondaycom and what I was seeing was more and more resistance from the users. So you would set it all up for the business owner's you know specifications and then if the team members didn't enjoy working in it, it was a frustrating experience for them. It was disappointing to the business owner who had just invested in the software and the time to get it set up. And what I found with Mondaycom is that everybody who I was implementing it for loved it. I really want to encourage folks to do their work because I have seen it time and time again really be a great experience for folks. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You brought up a really great point, and something that I've experienced personally and I know that other people do as well is that when you start thinking about implementing a new technology or bringing on a new system or software, it seems very overwhelming and daunting, like the actual implementation. So do you have any advice or tips or tricks for people, things that they should think through before bringing on a new system like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really important to go about it in a thoughtful, planned way, as opposed to just signing up for the software, jumping in and just kind of like being loosey-goosey about setting it up right, which is so common. I mean, that is really common. Everything I talk to is like well, I had this problem I needed to solve and so I just signed up and you know, and I figured it out as I go Right. So I really for a software, especially one like mondaycom, that can serve various aspects of your business. I mean everything from the CRM to running your HR needs, to your tracking, your marketing efforts, like all of it. Right, it's a lot. And so you could really, if you plan and think through all of those processes that you're currently doing manually and what you would like it to be, if it could be automated, if you spend a little time to think through, okay, what are the things that I'm doing? What could I eliminate if the technology could do it for me? I encourage folks to just sketch it all out like literally scribble it out on a piece of paper, think through these processes, because it's all in your head, right, and a lot of folks need to be able to just kind of see it on paper first and then, after it's been scribbled out, then thinking through where the technology can be useful is important, and a lot of folks gravitate towards spreadsheets. But I always suggest to like challenge yourself and see if you can take it a couple steps further.
Speaker 2:Because I'm not knocking spreadsheets they're good, right, they have their purpose, but when you have tools that could take that information and literally automate it.
Speaker 2:So, for example, instead of marking on your spreadsheet that you won a deal, right, that you sold something, you could change a label in a software that would allow you to kick in some automations.
Speaker 2:That would send a welcome email to the client giving them next steps of what to expect, whether they're ordering a product and they need a form or some you know shipping information. Or if it's a service and you want to kick them off with some scheduling of some sessions and you know that kind of automation could be set up so that it's just automated and personalized. It would have the person's name and customize whatever they ordered in the email, right. But to have that set up then alleviates you from having to do it every single time. So that kind of stuff's really important to think through and there's so many things like from you know, creating folders in your you know digital file system and having that all automated and set up and adding the person to a new project board. If you have to manage a project for whatever you just sold, like having those things, those templates already pre-set up and then, when you mark it sold, all of those automations kick into action.
Speaker 1:So your advice is to brain dump everything that you know about how your processes work and how you want them to be ideally yeah, and some folks don't even know what they don't know, right.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's understandable, it really is. It's like I don't know what's possible to automate, and that's where working with somebody like myself who's a consultant could really advise you on where to be able to automate more things. But there's a lot of knowledge that you could access online and you can educate yourself about learning how to automate certain things. There are great tools out there, like Zapier and Make, that you can set up and automate with some of your existing technology that you already have, or you can explore other softwares like we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I understand that you're a huge fan of mondaycom and I can absolutely see why. Are there some other tech must-haves that you think that small business owners should know about?
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things that I see commonly is that a lot of folks are kind of have one foot in Microsoft and one foot in Google, and that often surprises me, because I think it's just. People are creatures of habit, right, and so they end up like, oh, I like Microsoft Word, and so they have that in their computer, when Google Docs can do the exact same thing, right? Or people have spreadsheets and it goes in both directions. But both of those ecosystems offer tools that a lot of people don't even realize exist that could really help them, and if you are a Microsoft, you know office person. There's a lot of great tools in that ecosystem to be able to help you with task tracking and planning projects. They have Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Lists and, you know there's form capabilities to be able to have people submit information through a form.
Speaker 2:The same holds true with the Google Workspace.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's a lot of components to Google Workspace that you could do to set up. They have online scheduling as a component where, if you have schedule blocks and you want to have people sign up for certain time slots, there's scheduling capabilities right within your Google Calendar that you could utilize, and so a lot of people are under utilizing just those two main platforms and you know, with Google they have Google Tasks that you can track, and they have Google Chat and Google Meet that you could work with your team to communicate effectively using those tools. So I would say, just starting with what I consider to be the basics right of really tapping into, and if you don't need to purchase both Microsoft and Google, you can choose one whatever your preference is. And you know, with both you get the video conferencing. Microsoft has Microsoft Teams and with Google you have Google Meet. And yet a lot of people are purchasing Zoom and so they're paying an extra fee for something when they already have it as part of their subscription if they've purchased either of those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so just utilizing what you're already using to its fullest capability.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, starting there and then, of course, if you want to add on other things. There are so many great tools, like you know, scheduling apps, where you know, calendly is a fantastic one, very reliable scheduling platform. You know there's all kinds of great project management tools on the market. I obviously gravitate towards Mondaycom because I see it working really well there as well as other areas, see it working really well there as well as other areas. But there's great platforms like. Asana is a great tool and a lot of people will use that for project management. Yeah, I mean, the possibilities are really endless. It's a matter of what the need is, I guess, but those are some important things that I think every business should be using.
Speaker 1:Awesome, I'm going to put you on the spot and ask you to help me problem solve something, and it's the Small Business Bestie community. So for several months now I've wanted to create a directory where members of the Small Business Besties group can have their name, their business name, the industry that they're in, the city that they're in and I don't know, maybe like a promo code if they want to offer some sort of special for the small business besties. But I want to have somewhere hosted on the website where people can go like oh, I need to have a t-shirt made, I want to use a bestie, let me etch that. And for the life of me, no matter how many times I Google, I cannot find the solution. So do you know of a tool that does that?
Speaker 2:So you know, in a situation like that it kind of depends on your budget, and so I'll just put that out there first. I have endless resources, okay, don't we all? It could be something as simple as making a spreadsheet that is publicly, has a public link and is available, right. So on your website you could have a button that says directory and they could click it and it opens up the spreadsheet that has been made public. But that has some risks involved, because websites, obviously, unless it's behind a login, then it's open to the entire public and we don't necessarily want that Right. And so if you would have to kind of think through how you would make that accessible to members only for the small bestie, community Right, community right. I know you run the community on Facebook and so you could put the directory link in the Facebook community so only members of the community could access it, things like that. So I mean, that's a pretty inexpensive route to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the first attempt at this, I will tell you, was a Google form that all of the results you know get populated onto a Google sheet, and I said, well, I'll just make the sheet public. Yes, but it wasn't formatting correctly, it was kind of hard to navigate and there wasn't a way to break it down by, like you know, industry so that you could say like, oh, here's the accountants in the group and the you know, we're stylists. So I guess I was trying to get like overcomplicate things.
Speaker 2:Well, no, I think what you're talking about is great. So what I mentioned is really just the basics of possibility. It's inexpensive, it's the way to go, but if you really want something that can offer those search capabilities and being able to sort and filter and all of that stuff. I know I sound like a broken record, but I set one of these directories up for another organization who wanted a directory as well and we used mondaycom. And the way that we used it is through the members submitting a form and the form went into a Monday board and because we didn't want everybody to need a user seat to be able to access it, just the organization owned the software. But you can make a board have guest access for free, so you can have however many guests you want on the board for free. So they were able to only access that particular board. It was considered the member directory and any members of the organization could see it behind a login access.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome. Okay, well, now I know there is a solution. I knew there had to be one, I just don't have to find it.
Speaker 2:And it is great. I would say that the functionality of it works perfectly for a directory, but the trick for any organization is getting that to an accessible point, entry point right. You can have a directory and you probably experienced this with your even when you were using the Google Sheet. The people need to know how to get to it and they need to be able to get to it easily, and so putting a link On the website so that they can click on it To get to the guest page, but then they have to use a login To be able to access the names and emails and all that Perfect.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for problem solving with me. And now all of you guys who have been asking for the directory, you know like I'm working on it and Carrie's going to have to get there Awesome. Well, carrie, is there anything else that you feel like you could bring some value to the listeners, or anything you want to talk about your business? To just leave us with?
Speaker 2:Well, I just, you know, I know technology can be overwhelming and I know a lot of folks are like where do I start? I don't know even where to get started. The tips that I gave today I'm hoping will, you know, be able to get people's thought process going and how they might be able to at least have a starting point with that. But one of the things I want to urge people to think about is really it's getting over those hurdles are really important, not only for your business's success, your business's growth. But you walk away with all of that brain trust and all of that knowledge. The business needs to still operate without you in order for it to be, you know, a valuable investment for someone else. Right, and so having those systems are really important, even though they, you know, for most folks they kind of fall low on the priority list. They're just trying to get through the day, they're just trying to get through the week.
Speaker 2:Setting aside the time, even if you do it in small increments, like a section of every quarter.
Speaker 2:You devote a week to focusing on your systems, at least you will start to build them over time.
Speaker 2:I think it really improves the value of your business, helps you retain your team and one of the things that, when it comes to teams, I always say like folks are like oh, I need to hire somebody, I need help, I can't do this all by myself, which is true. I've been there. I know exactly that feeling. But I always say to folks first invest in the technology and see what the automations and the technology can do to support you and help you, and then it will really shed light on what skill sets you need when you're hiring somebody, because you're probably going to want to invest more in somebody who can bring innovation and critical thinking to your organization, to your business, instead of paying somebody to do the same task week after week after week that could be automated. So you know, it just really will help your business grow if you're selecting the skill sets that are really going to help your business expand, kind of move the needle, so to speak, on your business growth.
Speaker 1:I love that. That is such amazing insight. I mean, I've definitely thought through before the exit strategy and systems and processes are important for that. But to think of hiring technology before people like my mind is blown right now, that is so smart and such a clear way to explain it also.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I just have seen so many people who want to jump right into hiring an assistant, hiring an office manager, and I'm not saying that's not a wise move. It can be really necessary. But first of all, when that person gets in their position, they're going to want to know what systems are in place and what they can do right, so you know, to help them do their job successfully. So you might as well start there. You might as well start with the technology, see what can be automated and whatever's remaining. Then you can hire the right people for the right things. You know that need done.
Speaker 1:So Absolutely so. I have to tell you I have sort of a morbid sense of humor and I probably see things differently than a lot of people, but you were talking about, like you, you need to have your systems in place so that if you want to sell the business or you want to give it to your, you know, your heirs or whatever. And, as you said that, a school bus drove by, and I always tell people you need to have a plan because you might get hit by a bus. And as you were talking about that plan, a bus drove by and I was like, oh, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, carrie, I appreciate you so much. You have so much wisdom and so much knowledge. I know that you are a great resource for any small business owner, but, especially here in Lexington, our women owned businesses are so lucky to have somebody like you that they can lean on. So, as always, yeah, we're going to link all of your social media, your website, all of that in the show notes, but is there anything else that you would want anybody to know about? How to contact you?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, I offer complimentary exploratory calls. So if somebody is interested in learning how to refine their workflows and help their business operate more efficiently, they can go to ClarityCo ClarityCoorg. It's my website and there's a schedule link on there that you can schedule that complimentary exploratory call with me, and I'd be happy to talk with you about what's possible.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate you so much and I guess that's where we'll leave it, so we will talk to all of you guys later.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, bye, bye.