172. Optimize Your Business

Transcript:

  Welcome to the Connected For Real podcast. I’m Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business. And my mission is to bring God’s presence into your life, into your marriage and into your business. Let’s get started.

we are live. Welcome everyone to the connected for real podcast. I’m Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman. Today with me is Temima Gass. Tamima introduce yourself and then we’ll get right into it. Thank you. So I am Temima Gass. I am a tech consultant, which means that I solve your thorny tech problems.

The ones that are keeping you up at two a. m. at night, the ones that are causing all the headaches. I use custom solutions using non custom software, meaning we’ll look at your business. The software you’re already using. We’ll either decide how to see if we can optimize what you’re using to streamline things and make things easier for you, or if you need a different software.

But my focus is making it as easy and hassle free for you. So that means we’re not going to be doing a custom build. We’re going to be using off the shelf software tailoring it to work for you with systems and automation. Yeah, that was a lot of Chinese to a lot of people who are listening today.

You’re like, what is she talking about? So let’s make it a little bit clearer. Tamima is the best tech person you can have on your team, right? I love that you look at what is in existence already. And, you know, some of my clients I send to you to just set them up from scratch because they don’t have anything.

But some people have, you know, like when I met you, I had a bunch of things and it was very, puzzly. Everything was everywhere. And you really helped me streamline everything and make it all work. And it’s actually been really fun. I’m surprised that myself, I’m saying tech is fun, but you know, it’s been rubbing off on you, you are rubbing off on me.

It’s been really supportive to know that I have who to turn to, that I know that you understand what I’m talking about when I say something is stuck or something is wrong and I like that you have similar priorities, like let’s not go for the most expensive thing just because they say they’re cool, you know, we’re going to make sure to find the solution that works for you in the most make sensical way.

Yeah. I’m also not going to say you need to change software if you’re what you have works like when we first started working together, you had flow desk and it was working for you. So I didn’t, even though I don’t like Flowdesk, I didn’t say you should switch off. It was only when Flowdesk stopped working for a year that I was like, okay, now it’s, now it’s time.

Right. Yeah. And I’m really glad, I’m really glad I switched out.

So let’s talk about organizing and business because that’s the topic today. And you guys know we have the same topic coming from four different angles. So God, marriage, business, you and organizing and God organizing and marriage organizing and business organizing and you. The previous ones are really great.

So go back and listen, but this one is all about your business and how do we get organized? So hit it off. Well, the first thing is we do it in small steps. We want to know how to get organized in small steps, one at a time to try to make this huge project of like, I’m going to organize my business.

It doesn’t work. I mean, I think in your home, it’s the same thing. You’re not going to declutter your entire house in one day. I’m thinking more about the online part of business, but even if your business is more like a brick and mortar business it’s just like a home.

It’s, there’s so many moving pieces. You can’t say it’s all going to happen right away. It’s slow, steady. You know, I, when it comes to digital organization, I like to literally put 10 minutes on a calendar and organize for 10 minutes and then stop for the day. Sometimes even stop for the week.

If it’s too much to do it every day. So the quick question to how do we organize our business is slowly one at a time. So the main thing is to really think of your business. I, I have what I like to call my five systems circle. It’s like a.

Five system circles. Sorry. It’s my framework that I’ve developed of five operational areas for your business. So I like to look at each one at a time when it comes to organizing. Well, yes, there is a lot of overlap between them and I’ll share in a minute. I kind of think of it as like a five part Venn diagram, you know, with like overlap between all the parts.

But you could look at each one as a whole and say, okay, what’s not working here? What needs to be organized here in this particular area. Um, And the five operational areas is your communication so that’s your email and the other ways that you might communicate with clients, with vendors your email, your task management, your bookkeeping, your marketing and your a task management is operation.

Sorry, let me just back up a minute to make that clear. And the client delivery. Is the fifth one. So, let me just repeat it for myself. So I can remember email or the way that you communicate with people. So it could also include, you know, if people are working on what’s up or a phone or social media, things like that.

So communicating, then you had bookkeeping, there was something in between maybe, then there was operations, yeah, operations. Operations, which is like your tasks and making sure things get done and reminding yourself of things that have to happen. Marketing, marketing and client delivery. Yeah, cool. So, yeah, so there is, like I said, a lot of overlap because communication is going to overlap with client delivery and marketing. And even operations if you have a team, but if you look at each one as a whole and say, Do I have the systems that support me?

Do I have the tools that support me? And can I find everything easily? Speaking of organization and then you could make a plan for each one and kind of implement it slowly. So even though we have to go one step at a time, would you say awareness of what already exists or what you already have in place is really important for moving forward?

Oh, for sure. The first step is like, just. Look at what’s going on. Mm hmm. So, like I said, you may want to take each system at a time or you might want to take your whole business as a whole. And I actually do that in my, in my consultations with clients we take 90 minutes and I, I go through their whole business.

It’s easier to do it with someone and you don’t need to hire me to do it. You could do it with a friend. You could do it for each other. Because really all I’m doing is being like the objective person and, and saying, tell me, like a lot of times when I say to people, how do you communicate? And they’re like, oh, we only do everything by email.

And then I talk to them and they’re like, oh. Well, that person only likes WhatsApp and the other person needs to pick up a phone to talk always. And then it’s like, Oh, right. We don’t have everything in email. So sometimes like when you have like a extra person coming in there to ask questions about how your business is set up.

it just is a lot easier to get the clarity and answers quicker than trying to remember everything by yourself. Yeah, I love that you say you could do this with a friend guys. I don’t, I don’t think that I don’t agree because like, you know, to me, my so good at this that she knows what to ask.

And if I would talk to a friend, I’d be like, yeah, all of my communications are by email. My friend would be like, okay, cool. So you got this one down next. Like, she wouldn’t even go deeper and ask, you know, about certain things. So you think that, but I think that in conversation, when you’re in a conversation with someone, more things come up than, than if you, because suddenly you’re like, have to explain how, like, you wouldn’t think to explain to yourself cause you know it already.

But when you’re explaining it to a friend, it’s like, Oh wait, no, she does do WhatsApp. Meaning I personally, I mean, listen, hire me, everyone come hire me. But I do think that Like, this is something that you just need an objective person to be talking to. Like just you know, a robot at ChatGPT doesn’t count.

It needs to be like another person to bounce things off. Interesting. Okay, great. So first step is get on a 90 minute call with Tamima and talk your whole business out so you can create the plan. Exactly. Yeah, so the next really, it’s, it’s really hard for me to say what, like the next step should be for every person because everybody’s current state is so different.

So, I can’t say oh, the next thing should be, you know, working on your email system, because what if that’s not the priority for you, but in general assessing where you’re at, making a plan and implementing it slowly is how to organize your business. And I’m happy to talk about, let’s say your emails are a hot mess because I feel like email is, it’s really hard to manage when you’re dealing with clients, vendors, team members, only one place.

So sometimes I do recommend taking the. Let’s say the team member communication out of email and going into a task management tool. So that that way if you ever want to look back at things that your team told you, or you told your team or something that was like an open question that never was answered.

You can always go back to the task management tool to on that specific task, hopefully see a comment thread. And obviously a good tool will let you search easily to be able to see comments or, or tasks or things like that. Like maybe you would want to keep your, your team communication off email.

That way it’s one less thing in your email because email could get very. overwhelming. I feel like, you know, it’s almost like a badge of pride. Like I have 3000 unread emails. I have 10, 000 unread emails. I have 40, 000 unread emails. You know, personally, if you look in my inbox, I normally have between zero and five unread emails because I can’t focus if I know I have unread emails, but most people are probably not like that.

So I’m looking at my email right now, the little icon with the email says 20, 703. I don’t even know how you hand, like, how do you even like, I would not get anything done. But again, it’s everybody’s different. But I totally get you because on my WhatsApp, I’m always at zero. And if there’s ever any blue dots, they bother me.

So I feel like because my email is so out of control, I can’t even go there. But ever since the beginning of WhatsApp, I always was. on top of it. So I don’t have a situation where there’s hundreds or, you know, even tens. Like I’m always on top of it. Like at the end of the day, I will clear it all out and make sure I don’t miss anything.

Also because I have WhatsApp support as part of my coaching. I want to make sure that I don’t leave anything unread. Yeah. Well, I do want to make a, make a, a very, you mentioned something about how WhatsApp is always at zero. There’s this thing, inbox zero, right? And everyone thinks it means that you never have any emails in your inbox or unread emails, right?

Inbox zero, inbox zero. That’s like the whole thing. It is such a misunderstanding. I can’t even. Inbox zero means you’re trying to work towards spending as close to zero time in your inbox as possible. That’s what inbox zero means. Not that you have zero unread emails or zero emails altogether. That’s, that’s not, like emails constantly come in.

It’s not something that’s really possible to ever be at zero. But it is possible with systems to reduce the amount of time you’re spending in your email. So, okay. So how do we do that? That sounds really good. Entire, like we could, we could like now be on here for an hour and a half and I could just talk about email, but I’m honestly, it’s like the backbone of business communication.

So maybe, maybe that is like when we talk about organizing a business, we should be like a clean inbox is like, you know, they say like a clean desk reflects the state of your business. So, or whatever your desk in general reflects the state of your business. So maybe your inbox. So wait, remind me what you just asked me. How do we spend less time in our inbox or just in general?

I have another question that just came in. So I’m thinking maybe I’ll ask you that and then we’ll decide which one we address. But out of the five circles, Do you think that there’s an order of which one should go first? Like if you have all five that are a hot mess, which one do you address first?

Or if everything’s under control, which one do you optimize first? Okay. I wish I could share my screen or I wish I had it handy that I can even share my screen and pop it up, but imagine like a Venn diagram, right? So it’s like two circles overlapping. So I look at it as five circles overlapping.

So there’s no hierarchy or priority. They’re all equally important, and it really is, in your specific circumstance, what’s holding you back the most. And sometimes take, like again, what you said, like, you know, taking that time to really assess where you’re at, that’s like the, the easiest way to see what’s holding you back.

Is it that you can’t find anything in your inbox ever? Is it that you have no idea what you’re doing on a day to day basis because you have no task management set up? Is it that your bookkeeping is like you, you’re, you’re like the last time you ever wrote receipts was last January. And now your accountant’s asking you for, that’s not a problem for you, Rebbetzin Bat-Chen.

No, because I hired Tamima to make it all automated. So I don’t have to touch my bookkeeping. Right. So basically you would really want to assess what’s causing the most trouble for you right now? And that’s what you want to work on. That’s the priority to work on and in terms of Optimization if everything is working more or less, okay You just want to know what to optimize it would be

what would bring you the most profit soonest. The first step is reducing pain and the second step is improving Profit.

Okay. I like this. So, I guess in the first step, find what’s the most painful. And so if you’re not getting any clients because you’re not marketing and at all, or you have no idea where to start or whatever, that would definitely be a good place to start. But if you’re not writing your invoices and it’s been a year, you probably should just sit down and create some system.

I highly recommend creating an automated system like Tamima made for me. Why do I have to do this manually if it could be done automatically? Right, and let’s take a minute and like say what we did, what we organized there for you. Just cause it’s so fun and it was such a challenge.

It was so awesome. It was so awesome. And the nicest thing is, is that now I was able to replicate it for other clients as well. So could I, could I say what you, what you use and what you do and what we did? Like the tools? Nah, let’s not. Okay. Okay, let’s get into this because this is actually really interesting. My nature, my, you know, people pleaser, nice girl part of me is like, Sure, because I want to say yes to everything. But there was no in me. And I was like, no, but I can’t say no.

And I’m having this inner conflict and I’m like, I’m live, I’m on camera and I’m not sure what to say because I want to say yes, but I want to say no. And now I’m stuck. So I really had to pause and get back into myself and, and sort of own that it’s okay to say no, but I feel like I just modeled something I want all of you guys to know, like all of you guys to take responsibility.

Like, do it, do it, be okay. And not only did I make a fool of myself by being like but now I’m even taking it to next step. I’m telling you the behind the scenes because it is so interesting how much shame. There is behind like, wait, I’m having an inner conflict. I don’t know what to do. It’s not okay to have an inner conflict.

I should have it all together. I should know what I want. I know what I don’t want. Like, well, you’re always an inspiration. As I always say. So so yeah, but definitely going back to organizing. I think like even without the specifics, the point is, is that you want to get your business as organized as you can and yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I could give a little bit of just, you know, so I’m not hiding anything, but it just, you know, it’s too complicated. When somebody buys from me, I used to have to do it manually. I would go into the software, write the person’s name, write the person’s email, write the amount, blah, blah, blah, how they paid, figure out if it was bank transfer or, you know, whatever.

And then click, you know, the, the submit, whatever. And then it would send them a receipt and it would be all like, Yay, now I’m legal. And somebody told me, Just put a timer on your calendar to do it once a month, or once a week, or blah, blah, blah. It just doesn’t work. My brain doesn’t want to deal with it.

So I have this like resistance to it. And then what Tamima did was, as soon as somebody bought, It just automatically created a receipt. And it’s like, this is actually like a very big thing for people in Israel because of the whole, like the crazy receding requirements, as opposed to, you want to use global tools like thrive card or anything that uses stripe, really nothing, none of the Israeli tools use stripe.

So if you want to use something that uses stripe that’s, that’s a problem that a lot of. Business owners in Israel who sell to the entire world have, where it doesn’t it doesn’t translate to their Israeli tax compliant software. So this is really fun and I’ve done it for, for multiple clients you know, taking from Stripe over to Green Invoice or iCount or Sumit or those are the main three that I’ve worked with.

And it’s such a quick, easy thing and it streamlines. So much. It keeps you so much more organized. I’m telling you, it saved me not only time, but also emotional energy. Knowing that it’s something I don’t have to deal with. I just don’t, and recently one of my clients from two rounds ago came in saying she has a business it’s already established, but she does all of her emails manually.

Like, a person will send her an email that they’re interested, she will add them to the list of interested people, and then she will send all of her list of interested people, but like, she didn’t have an email marketing software. And I said, you are working so hard, you don’t even realize what’s possible.

So I sent her to Temima to start a Mailerlite, and now I just got an email recently saying, you don’t understand. How magical it is not to have to do it manually. It’s like 200 people all took her freebie. And in the, in the past, she would have had to sit there and do 200 emails with 200 names and figure out like, Oh my gosh, people stop working so hard.

This is stuff that’s already. Like way beyond basic, but because we don’t know, we don’t know. And then we think we have to do it the hard way. Like, you know, I don’t like to do overwhelm and I don’t like hard. I like letting things be easy. You know, nobody says you have to work hard. So for somebody, you know, for me, this was really important to bring you on here and say to everybody listening, like, let’s find ways to let it be easy.

Mhm. Well, speaking of that, letting it be easy. Sometimes when people think organized, they think like meticulous, like meticulously, like granular systems, you know, like, let’s say like a folder structure. So like all your documents are in the folder and then the sub folder and then the sub sub folder.

And then the sub sub folder has like five sub folders in there, you know, and that’s really for a lot of people. That’s really, really hard to remember to put each document that you download or let’s say you have a client folder and then like, Clients subfolders for each client’s name.

And then inside you have, like, this is a document type A or file type B, file type C, each one in folders. It’s really hard to remember to put them in the right folder and click, click, click, click, click till you get to the right place. So I don’t do that, actually. Because I keep everything stored in my Google Drive.

And most cloud storage will be the same. Where the search Functionality is insane. So as long as you make sure that the document is named something clearly that you’ll remember what it like, it has all the important things that let’s say the client’s name or what it is. And this is where naming conventions come very much in handy, which I’ll talk about in a second.

I just want to finish this, this trade and thought first. As long as you have a name clearly, you could search, you could search by file type, you could search by file name, you could search by sometimes what’s inside the document. And so the main thing with organization in in the in the age of cloud storage is just make sure it’s named properly because then you don’t, then you just need to, like, type in the thing you’re searching for, and it will automatically come up.

So that makes once I realized that I used to be like, neurotic about my storage, because I was like, I’m not going to find it. And I would even tell people, this was like, you know, 2019 Tamima was giving a live stream and saying you should use your granular storage because yes, it’s a few extra clicks, but at least you don’t have to think where it is.

You could find it right away. Yeah, maybe in the olden days, but nowadays where we have, like I said, cloud storage, specifically Google Drive, but all of them have the same pretty much the same search functionality. As long as it’s named something that you can easily find it, all you need to do is type that in and it comes up.

So, like a major time saver and just energy saver. It’s not like trying to keep track of your whole file tree and what goes in where and all that. You, you do want to have some semblance of structure of folders. So let’s say I like to have a, pretty much along the lines of my five systems, right?

So I don’t have a folder for email, but I have. My operations folder, and that’s where I put my finance and my legal stuff. Sorry, that’s my bookkeeping actually. My bookkeeping folder where I keep my finance and legal stuff. And I have my clients folder. And I have my marketing assets folder.

And then I have another one for business development learning stuff. So I just drop them in those folders. And it’s very clear which one belongs in which folder. Cause it’s like, they’re very broad categories. So it’s not like let’s say, my LLC filing papers. Should I put that in finance or should I put that in legal?

It’s all the same thing. So I just have my top level folders and I just drop them in there. And then I use search and once I realized that I can do that a couple of years ago, it was like, Whoa, huge load off my head. I can still be organized, but not neurotic. Right. So yeah, I think of it as like the bucket system, right?

Cass from the clutter bug has a bunch of different. Clutter bugs that are different personalities. And so there’s like the butterflies and the lady bugs are not going to take the time to separate by categories. So she just gives them a dumping ground. Like here’s a bucket, put all of the kids art stuff, you know, everything they came home from, you know, from school and, and nursery school or whatever, just put it all in there.

Don’t divide it by kids. Don’t divide if you want it or not. Like just make a pile and have a place to drop it. And then eventually you’re going to want to sit down and go through it. Go, you know, that’s fine. But the nature of ladybugs and butterflies is just a dump. So at least have a bucket to dump into so that you are organized enough.

So I like what you’re saying is like just being able. To have a place to dump it is enough. I would even say, even if it’s all in one folder called stuff, it’s still better, it’s still better than not having it in one place. Yeah. That’s another thing about organization. Always make sure that you’re saving everything in the same place.

I’ve come into clients where I found that they had, some things were saved in Google drive. Some things were saved in Dropbox and some things were saved in. What’s Microsoft’s Google drive called? I totally just blanked on me one, not one note. That’s their note taker paper. I just blinked out of me, but they had like subscriptions to each of them.

And they had files saving each of them. And I was like, why? And they’re like, I don’t know, cause Google drive isn’t connected to my Gmail account, but I, I use Microsoft for work and Dropbox. I want someone once gave me a extra credits or something. So I have this free credits and it’s like. Yeah, you might have it included in like each of these things included, but you need to choose one place and put everything in one place.

I also, it was one thing if they would have like a system for these kind of files go in this place and these kind of files go in that place. But many times I come into people and they’re, they’re all over the place two or three different file storage solutions and there’s no, rhyme or reason to why they’re putting their documents, like these kind of documents in that place or those kind of documents in the other place, a lot of double work, a lot of looking around for things, a lot of searching.

So I always recommend just choose one and stick with it. So if you have if you’re used a Google user, use Google drive. If you’re a Microsoft user, use there. solution. I don’t really like Dropbox in general. And I do like that Google Drive and Microsoft’s equivalent are connected to your email.

So it’s very, it’s much easier to integrate them. But if you like Dropbox, then do Dropbox, but just put everything in one place. Don’t keep them scattered. Also, don’t keep them saved on your computer if you could keep them in Dropbox or Google Drive. Now, something a lot of people don’t know about Google Drive is that you can install drive for desktop and I’m sure they have a Mac app as well.

But what you can do is you can install a folder on your computer. That’s just like a regular Windows Explorer folders that you’re used to using. They’re sitting in your computer, but they’re not saving your computer. They’re stored in Google drive. They’re kind of like mirror to your computer.

So if your computer loses Internet access, unless you make a setting that they should be available online, they won’t be available online. I’m sorry, available offline, meaning if let’s say you’re in a you’re in a power outage and you’re using your laptop or you just don’t have Internet At that moment, you won’t be able to access the files unless you set it in advance to be accessible offline.

But as long as you have internet access, you can access them on your computer, just like a regular file, make changes to them, everything, and it will sync back to Google drive. So that you don’t have to feel like you’re in the cloud all day. But it is all in one place and you can drag it from let’s say your downloads folder into that folder on your computer and it automatically syncs to Google Drive.

So a lot of people don’t know that that’s an option. When I installed it on my computer, my organization went through the roof because suddenly I wasn’t having like upload things to Google Drive. I was literally using it as a regular file on my computer. Let’s say like I would be finished with a Word document.

So I would click save as. And save it to the Google Drive folder and then boom, it’s in my Google Drive. So I highly recommend doing that if you’re a Google Drive user and Microsoft has the same. So if you’re using one of those, and I think Dropbox also does, but I’m not 100 percent sure.

But either way, it will help you stay much more focused and organized with all your overflowing downloads and all that. Cool. So now let’s talk about the naming because you said it’s really important to know what you name things. Yeah. So definitely don’t keep things unnamed, like untitled document.

There’s also this is like a cool Google Docs trick. If you’re using a Chrome browser, you could just type doc. new into your. Browser, and it will automatically open a Google Doc. The downside of that is that if you forget to rename it, suddenly there’s like 30, 000 untitled documents floating around your Google Drive.

So you always want to name it and you want to name it something clear and easy to remember what it is. So we’re naming conventions come in is where you have a specific structure for naming documents or podcast episodes or graphics in Canva or Anything really. Email tags, whatever it is that you, that you are constantly naming.

When you set up a convention, a convention means like the way you do it over and over again, like a template basically. Then it’s, first of all, it takes out the hassle of what to name it. And second of all, when you’re searching, it’s much, much easier to find what you’re looking for. So there’s two ways to do this. I like to have like basic, I do this for my email tags, for example, it’s really the only place that I personally use email naming conventions, like consistently is my email tags in MailerLite meaning like every time I create a new program or a new class, or I contribute to a bundle or anything like that, I want to tag them in my email system as where they’re coming from.

Okay. So in order to be able to, like, sort it by alphabetically and just have it neat. So I have like a, a system of like the first word, a colon, the second word, and then a date. So I’ll explain what that means. The first word is like in general, what it is. So let’s say it’s, I have workshop. Summit. Contribution.

Maybe I’m not even sure offhand. I do have a written down so that when I’m creating a new one, I could go and just quickly check and not like have to remember off the top of my head and maybe client. I don’t remember the exact, general categories, but then the next thing, the next word, then it’s a colon, it’s always a colon and a space.

And then the next word, which is like describing what that is. So let’s say like I’m doing coming up at the end of this month, I’m doing a course training VAs. So it’s going to be workshop VA masterclass is the name of the course. So workshop colon space, VA masterclass, and then the year. So it’s going to be 2025 dash the month.

So 2025 01. So that’s gonna, that’s the Tag in my system anyone who’s already signed up for that and anyone who signs up in the next few weeks Will be tagged with that Naming convention so that let’s say I want to do this live workshop again next year So that would be 2026.

Oh one or let’s say I do it in the summer. So 2506 I’ll be able to sort it and it will come automatically in order which class I did first, second, third, so I could also see at a glance, let’s say that I had 50 people in the January 2025 and only 10 people in the June 2025. That’s data for me or the opposite.

If I had a hundred people in June 2025, I’ll be able to see at a glance, like how many people came. You know what I mean? It’s like, that’s just the one way I use the naming conventions, but there’s other ways that make it. Even just for finding the tag. If I want to be able to send an email specifically to that tag, if I’m able to sort it alphabetically, it definitely helps.

So so that’s naming conventions are super duper helpful. Now what I do with my Google Docs and everything I upload to Google Drive because naming, I’m too lady buggy and butterfly ish for naming conventions in every area. So what I do is I just like kind of keyword stuff. Like I just put in as many things as I can think of that I would want in the file name so that when I’m doing a search I’ll be able to find it easily.

Well it depends really because anything that’s client related, I put their name in the title and that already is easy to find. So that I don’t need to like really keyword stuff. But this is happening more and more lately because I’m using Google Gemini a lot, which is Gemini’s Google’s version of chat GPT.

And the reason I’m using it as opposed to chat GPT, even though I think chat GPT is better output, is that I can create Google Docs from responses. So sometimes I like do like a stream of like brainstorming with it. And then I want to create a Google Doc to come back to it later and work on it more.

You know, add in my own, you know, do editing and things like that. So in that case, I will put as many things as I can think of in the title of the Google Doc that’s created that way I could come back and find it easier. So that those are two example, by the way, I think with taxes, it was, you know, it’s really helpful.

We put the person’s name, because, you know, there’s two working adults, so you need to know who, who it’s from. So we put the person’s name, the word text, the word, you know, any words that can give us an easy search, and then the year, so that we can quickly find it. And like, again, I like that. You don’t, it doesn’t have to be perfect because the search engine is strong enough to deal with the fact that we’re not perfect.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. You can search. I didn’t even mention this, but you can definitely like filter by dates. Like if you know for sure that you uploaded this in January 2025, you could search by date. So it will, it won’t show, it won’t give you a return. Then you could like search a more general term because it won’t return anything from prior to You know, January 2025.

So so, like, basically with a search, and then you can also search document types if you know it’s a PDF and not Google Doc, then that also narrows down the search. It’s so, so easy to find what you need. So let’s go through the other circles and see where else, where else can we get more organized? In what ways?

What’s available? I feel like a lot of, you know, just like that woman who didn’t know that email marketing existed. And then now that it does. Feels like magic because wow, I don’t have to do it myself. What other things are available for people who didn’t even know? I mean, we’re all in this business world.

We’re all doing this digital stuff. And there’s still so much that we don’t realize is possible.

  Hey! Before we continue the episode, I want to ask you something. Are you ready to get answers from God directly? Feel more in love with your husband and more supported than ever? Run the business of your dreams without having to sacrifice any other part of your life? That is exactly what my one on one private coaching is for and I want to invite you, just you and me, for a free deep dive discovery call.

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Now back to the show.

 Yeah. So I would say, okay, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think everyone knows that task management tools are a possibility now, things like Trello, Asana, ClickUp. Maybe not. But I think that, that most people are aware that such things are available. Most people are aware of CRM’s CRM is a Client Relationship Management Tool. And that’s. Game changing for organization because that helps you keep all your clients in one place. It lets you track your communication with each one. So like if it integrates with your email, you could actually have a log of all the email messages that you sent them.

They sent you over the entire duration of them working with you. It could track your, your proposals and your pipeline, meaning people who are coming in and how they’re. Going through your sales process. So how many people who booked a call with me actually became clients, right?

So things like that are so, so much easier to track and everything is just, so it’s less in your head and more. In a concrete, well, not pen and paper, but as close as it’s going to get digital. And it’s much easier to stay on top of it and stay organized when it’s all in one place. So, so I think in each of those systems, what’s I’ll just tell you the tool that’s key. So in operations, a task management tool is key. So whether it’s I personally like Trello, but it’s not perfect. So whether it’s Trello, Asano, ClickUpNotion, Monday. com. There are so many out there. You just need to find the one that works for you. That is. Crucial. It’s essential.

You can’t really grow your business without one. And your client management circle, it’s a CRM. Like I said, a customer relationship management tool that is absolutely crucial. Now I personally prefer buying off the shelf software that’s meant for client relationship management tools.

Some people like building custom systems and notion or air table. I feel like putting all the effort to build a custom system it’s such a huge project and it could be so expensive and take so much more time. Why not just use a CRM that’s made for your industry? And yeah, you will end up having to pay a monthly fee, but it’s, it’s already, it’s off the shelf.

It comes with many of the features you already need and it’s customizable to, you know, you could, you could extend its functionality for sure with something like Airtable or Notion. But to start with using off the shelf CRM, I recommend. And the one I recommend for most freelancers is called Moxie.

And you can go to uncomstrategy. net slash. Moxie, I think is the link for my affiliate extended free trial. So that’s for CRM for the client, what’s it called for bookkeeping? 100 percent you need a bookkeeping tool. A lot of times CRMs will have bookkeeping software, like bookkeeping functionality built in.

Like, because you’re a lot of times sending your invoices from your CRM, it’s able to track your income. But it might not have all the features you need. So if your CRM does have all the features you need for bookkeeping, great. If not, you’ll need a separate tool. And obviously, like we said, if you’re in Israel, you’ll need a separate bookkeeping tool that’s tax compliant.

Right. Marketing. Well, for sure, everyone should be email marketing, like, instead of like having like a spreadsheet of people and BCCing them every time you want to talk to them, having an email marketing software, a platform will, okay, so your deliverability will be a little bit lower than by BCCing, but on the other hand, you’ll be able to get so much more data.

about your people. And that’s, that’s also part of being organized. Because if you send out an email from your regular Gmail account and BCCing all your contacts, you have no idea who’s being illegal at this point. Well, it’s not illegal if they’ve opted in. It’s not, it’s well, cause you’re not giving them a way to unsubscribe unless you write the bottom.

If you’d like to opt out, please reply. It’s not a one click unsubscribe, which you are required to do nowadays. That is true. So it’s not necessarily illegal. It’s just Google doesn’t like it. Meaning if you’re sending a mass email and you don’t have an easy way to unsubscribe, Google doesn’t like that very much.

So but it’s not illegal if they’ve all given consent. However, it’s definitely not a great user experience and you don’t know anything about the email that you just sent. So how are you supposed to know if you’re supposed to like, how are you supposed to know what to do next if you don’t know who opened it, who clicked on links in the email unless someone responds to you, you have no way of knowing who actually was interested in it.

Whereas with an email marketing platform if you’re sending emails consistently, you’ll be getting a lot of information about which emails work, which don’t, what’s worth to invest in. And you’ll also have a running log of all your emails that you’ve sent in one place.

So email marketing tool is for sure key so that is like a non negotiable. I think in the marketing circle, if you’re going to be doing social media marketing, you should also use like some kind of scheduling planning tool. I, I don’t really, I can’t really speak on which tool is the best in that area, but you should use something to keep everything in one place.

And again, have like a history. Of what you’ve posted and that way also you could see like what did well and like kind of repurpose it change a little bit and repost it a few months later. It helps you stay much more organized than just kind of coming up with an idea, posting it on the fly and forgetting about it, forgetting that you ever sent it.

And then if it was really valuable content and it did really well, you don’t know that because you don’t have any way of tracking it. Yeah, you know, a lot of people tell me that they don’t want to do social media. And for whatever reason, for some people, it’s, I don’t want to deal with that. I want to feel whatever.

And for some people, it’s just, it’s not in my value system to be on my phone all day long. And, you know, on social media and. Me and my my VA and I have had this conversation many times because at first I didn’t want to do my social media. So I just gave it to her. And then she’s complaining that she doesn’t want to be there either.

It’s just like, you know, wasting her time and she gets distracted and dah, dah, dah. So we ended up finding a scheduler. And we both barely ever go on the actual apps. Nowadays I, you know, I do go in and respond or comment or whatever, because of the things that. You know, I feel like helped me the most, but it’s no longer an issue.

So I definitely can solve a lot of problems if you have a way to schedule ahead of time. And then you also could get organized if you’re the type of person who likes to batch and you don’t feel like you’re consistent and able to just like go on every day and post something spectacular over and over again until something, you know, somebody notices you like, why don’t I just.

sit down and do all of it, you know, for the week or all of it for the, you know, next couple of days or whatever the month it’s so it, it, it helps those who work differently than, you know, than the typical. Yeah. I think everybody could benefit from batching. Actually. It’s hard to force yourself to sit down and do it, but I think even if like you are the more spontaneous type batching helps you stay consistent.

It’s the only way really you’re going to burn out eventually if you just try to do it every day. Right. So yeah. And then what, which I mean, hence the fact that we’re on this podcast now that’s only airing in a couple of months, one of the coolest things that happened for me is Having a baby in 2024 forced me to be proactive, think ahead and batch for the entire year within like two months.

So in two months I was done for the year and then I didn’t have to do it again. And now I’m doing the same thing. I’m having so much fun. And I’m in a good mood now. I don’t know, maybe in a month or two, I won’t be in the mood to talk to people or whatever it is. And that’s, really part of the fun of batching. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s awesome, actually, that you’re doing this so far in advance, because it just takes a load off everybody. Like, if I want to promote your podcast to my list, but this month I’m already doing a promotion, it’s going to be like a kind of conflict. But if I know that you’re only releasing it in a couple of months from now, I can go and let my list know about it.

The week it releases and I could already plan it in advance. So like, I already know, okay, the week of whatever you’re going to tell me what week is going to be released. I’m not sending a promotional email to my list about anything else. I’m telling them about Rebbetzin Bat-Chen’s podcast.

Right. Yeah. It’s, it’s it’s some of those things that make us feel like we’re broken. There’s something wrong with me because I’m not organized. I’m not on top of it. I can’t stay consistent. And you know, the, the business world makes women who are very creative and want to do, you know, want to get out of the, and it’s so interesting.

You know, specifically the women who are creative and want to get out of the box and don’t want to do things the way you’re supposed to do, end up being told that this is how you have to do it because this is what you’re supposed to do and this is how it works and this is what you need to do and push your push, push, push, push, push yourself.

And that’s when you start feeling like you’re working hard and that you’re working against your nature. But what if we didn’t have to work against our nature? What if you can just, you know, quiet the noise, figure out what really matters to you? How do I make it work? How do I make sure that I’m having fun and I’m doing it with ease?

And then it will just flow. Yeah, that’s actually something I learned from you. Is that you don’t have to do what works for everyone else. So at one point I was like, I just don’t want to. Be in my emails ever. I don’t want to answer emails. I don’t want to receive emails. I just don’t want to look at emails.

And you were like, so don’t, so put an autoresponder that you don’t answer emails and be done with it. And I was like, that’s actually something I can do. Cause it’s my business. Right? So there were a few months that I had that, I was like, don’t expect an answer from me. I’m currently back.

And you know what? It was amazing because. You ended up getting more calls because people knew that they’re not going to be able to just pick your brain with an email. Yeah, it was incredible. And I’m actually like slowly inching there. I’ve just, I’m just coming off like a massive project for a client and I’m like, So tired.

I’m like, I think I’m ready to put that autoresponder back on for the next month. So, and it’s just like, it’s my business. It’s my rules. I don’t need to do that the way everyone else says you need to do it. As long as it works for me and it’s helping me stay on track. Then, then it’s good for my business.

Yes. Could you imagine like a couple of years ago saying that on a podcast? Yep. Yep. This is all a testament to working with you and it’s, it’s pretty cool how we kind of, I like, I dunno, I just think it’s cool how you hired me and then I became your client and we’re still in each other’s world five years later.

Yeah. It’s so cool. It is so cool. And I find, I find it, how it happens a lot like that because. Awesome people attract awesome people and we’re constantly empowering each other. Because of our interactions, it makes me very happy because when I think of redemption, you know, big picture stuff we’re in the time of redemption.

You can’t fight it. It’s just like, guys, it’s getting to the point where it’s like, it’s either all or not, like we’re, we’re not staying default for very long. So it says that women are going to be bringing on redemption. And when women lead, they don’t lead like men, right? A man will lead. He’s the top.

Everybody is supporting this one top women lead in groups. We fly together. And I think of fly together that whole concept of like the birds all flying. Makes it that the birds have to work less hard because everybody’s just sort of moving the air at the same time That’s what I’m talking about when I say ease right when there’s like a flow Things are just working.

Everybody is is collaborating. Nobody’s Add like another little detail to your whole image there There’s a cool thing that birds like when the when the leader when the bird in front gets tired He falls back and another bird takes his place seamlessly. It’s such a like Symbiotic like synergistic beautiful creation where they’re all kind of supporting each other Just instinctively.

Yeah. So when I signed up for my very first, it was a long time ago, but I signed up to a coaching program that was so exact for what I needed at that moment. And I knew I needed to join, even though it was the most expensive thing I’ve ever paid for. And I thought my husband would blow crazy like, what do you want to pay?

What for what? And I just went to him and I said, I just watched every single video and I think this is exactly what I need. And it’s going to make me a leader. And he says, okay, well, if that’s what you were meant for, then that’s what you need to do. And I, my whole, my whole brain went. What? Who are you?

What, what just happened? Because I was so scared of leaning into that leadership. That I was hoping he would say no, right? But then when he didn’t, I had to double take and be like, am I ready to be a leader? And when like now that you say that in such a beautiful way, it doesn’t mean that I am, you know, When I say I am a leader, it doesn’t mean I am like a man leader.

You know, here I am. It’s all about me. And you know, everybody look at me. It’s and I don’t mean to mock men, really, I’m sorry. But it’s just there’s an energy there that like is very about the leader. It’s just it’s about helping everyone else sort of come along. That’s what I feel like the leader is more of like a Hey, you guys, there’s something cool.

You need to know about, and you know, if you don’t know about it, you won’t know, just like with the automations. If you don’t know, then you don’t know. And you’re missing out on ease. You’re missing out on flow. And so many of my women who come on to discovery calls, I don’t believe you that it could be easy.

I think you’re making it sound better than it is possible. Right. And it breaks my heart because I see it every day. How women can transform the hard to easy. They can let go of all the shame and the weight that it, you know, there’s something wrong with me. And now, Hey, wait, there’s nothing wrong with me.

I’m actually working with my body, with my brain. We’re working together. It’s actually like moving along. And if I would have told my old self, Hey, you know, we’re actually doing it. She wouldn’t believe it, but it’s possible. So it’s very hard to sell something that We’ve been told so strongly is just there’s just nothing to do.

This is like, so off topic, but totally off topic, but I was just having a conversation with my kid the other day and she, I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it’s something very, very hard. And I was telling her. Nothing easy is worthwhile and then I was like, why am I telling her this? It’s so not true.

There are things that are worthwhile that are easy. You know, yes, a lot of times the really hard things are super worthwhile at the end for sure. And this was like more of like a, you know, like a, I can’t, I can’t think of the English word, but in Hebrew, like a kovei shethisro kind of thing, like meaning like overcoming your, your nature.

So yes, that’s very, very hard and it’s very, very worthwhile when you do it. I don’t want her to get the message that Nothing easy is worthwhile because there are things when your business is in flow and when you’re doing what you love It can be so easy and sometimes i’m like, I can’t believe I get paid to do this, you know Because it’s just so fun and easy for me.

So right. Yeah. Yeah, and that’s one of the things we had to work on is like Don’t I have to work harder? Like if it comes easy to me, then maybe I need to make up for it by working more or by You know, staying up later, overcomplicating it because it just needs to be hard, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

Whew. Wow. This was really fun. I love how wholesome our conversation was and not very like, this is the only thing we’re going to talk about organizing and business.

Any last questions for me? That I, I’m saying because I, I feel like I covered so much in a very unorganized way, just kind of like very organic, like dropping little gems here and there. So if there’s any last question you have for me and shoot, I’m thinking about the four pillars. Right. Sort of like taking a zoom out for a second. When we talk about our business and organizing within our business, when it comes to how it’s affected and how it affects the other pillars.

So when you have an organized business, how does that affect your. Relationship with God. How does it affect your marriage? How does it affect the way that you feel about yourself? I think a lot of us are, so, especially like in the solopreneur world where like, or like the freelancer world, where you are your business the success of your business, not only the success in terms like the monetary success, but also how you feel about your business.

How, how. Like I got this. It makes you feel what’s that feeling? Like when you got this, what was the word for that? But competent. Yeah. I think that very much affects the rest of your life, which is why you have the four pillars. Right. So I think that when you feel like your business is a hot mess and you’re constantly putting out fires and you’re constantly trying to find things and you’re not, you’re just in this state of like.

everything’s a mess. Everything is just too much. And it’s just like, I don’t know what to do first. It kind of spills over into your life. It makes you feel like a failure. So you feel worse about yourself. And so you’re like, of course the laundry isn’t done and the dishes are a mess. Everything’s just a mess.

And it just kind of like impacts your whole mood. So if you’re feeling like you’re constantly behind at work and constantly scrabbling to keep up, it’s going to make you feel less connected to yourself, less connected to your spouse less connected to God, because you’re, You’re just struggling to keep up in this one area that everything else just feels like dragged along with it.

So, yeah, I mean, the word that comes to me is just surviving, just like, you know, the difference between surviving in your business is like trying to get through it and thriving. And there was one woman who told me her house is a mess. She needs to learn actual organizing skills for her home, but she doesn’t want to invest in that because it doesn’t interest her.

She would much rather invest in growing a business. And I say, do it because when you invest in growing a business and you do it with someone who’s very focused on making sure that you do it with your nature and in an organized way, in a way that lets it be easy, you’re not adding more to your plate.

You’re actually adding more. Fulfillment more fun more excitement. And then when you get back into the home front, you’re like, oh I’m capable I can do it if I organize my business I can organize my life. I can organize my laundry I can organize the dishes and so things start to feel better just by removing yourself and finding a thing that you actually are good at where You know, the thing that would make sense for most adults, right?

Like the people giving her advice is like, you don’t do anything else until you do the things you need to do. But that makes you feel even worse because now I’m trapped in my mess. Now I can’t do anything else because I’m a mess. Where in reality, if you detach from the mess and do something that brings you joy and really.

you up, you’re going to be a lot more resilient to the mess. You’re going to be able to handle it, take, you know, one step at a time and start to get into a rhythm. Your habits are going to start to help you and support you as opposed to not. Knowing what to do next, like things are going to start working.

So my advice is if you feel like a hot mess in one area of your life, don’t try to fix it, fix it, fix it. And then only then will I be able to do something else. Instead, try to detach yourself just for a moment, find something that makes you come alive and then go back to it with a new improved way of, of self compassion.

I also want to say just like, just. The flip side, like the practical side of being organized you have just have more time in your life. It’s just like you have more time to focus on the things that are important to you on your self care, on your, your relationships with your husband, on your relationship with God.

Like you just have more not just free time, but also peace of mind. So there’s that. Right. Right. And that’s where the thriving comes. People are talking a lot about these words, you know, from survive to thrive and yay, but like bottom line, we don’t actually know what thrive looks like until we get there. It’s so hard to believe that it’s possible because it’s so far from where I am. Right. And the good news is that it’s actually much closer than you think, because some of the tweaks that you need to make in order to get there are so minimal.

For that woman getting a mailer light account and actually setting it up correctly made it that she no longer had to ever do it again. Like how hard was it to set up? Not, it wasn’t, it was just get it done and be done with it. How hard was it to set up, you know, having all of my bookkeeping, just take care of itself.

It was just hiring to me, letting her do it, you know, tweaking a couple of things so that it works well. And then just checking out and checking in on it to make sure it’s working. But like, we think it has to be hard and we think it has to be complicated. And in reality, it doesn’t.

It’s so amazing. Do you have any last words? I think you just said it all. That was awesome. Well, that was an awesome way of wrapping it up. Tamima, where can people find you and work with you? So my website is UncommonStrategy. net and right there, you can say that slower because that’s common strategy dot net and it’s not dot com.

It’s not net and it’s uncommon strategy because we focus on the strategy first and that is kind of uncommon in the tech world. So Yeah, I love it. I love it. And Tamima’s whole being and the way that she does her business is very uncommon and it’s why she’s so good at what she does. So definitely a highly recommended tech girl to have on your team.

Thank you. You’re welcome. Thank you for listening. Thank you for coming. Thank you for being here and we will be back next week with another amazing episode and another amazing. 📍 So stay tuned and don’t forget to be connected for real.

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