What a One Day Conference Taught Me

• Using chat to stay connected with my team – We use chat rather than email often for quick questions, updates… or ranting. I can keep the history and scroll back and forth later to reference something if I need to. Right now, Google chat/hangouts are working just fine to accomplish this.

• Making sure to always include time zone when scheduling meetings – this seems simple, but I was surprised to see and hear how many people were talking about this after. Sometimes we don’t realize that the other person may be traveling (or I might be!), or just happens to be in a different time zone. Not only do I always include it in emails, but I always make sure I edit any calendar invitations to include it as well.

• Using simple tools is fine – This was my biggest take away. One thing I’ve been struggling with is to find a great tool to track our new client prospects. I love MethodIntegration.com, but honestly, it’s more than we need right now. I’ve put a lot of pressure to find something that does what I want, and it easy for my team to learn. After hearing that a distributed team of 12 uses Excel and WordPad to track leads and projects, I think our Google Doc spreadsheet is just fine for now. I feel less pressure to find that killer app right away.

What I learned that I was doing wrong:

• Not scheduling daily check in– My account manager and I usually meet in person once a month and do a call every few days if I feel like we need to, but there’s nothing set that’s a standard, recurring… THING. We’re currently working on this, regardless of whether it’s a quick phone call each morning, or something simple like a google form we each complete every day. (I’m thinking that because it would show date/time stamps). We’ll each answer 2 questions: What did you accomplish yesterday and what are you doing today? Either way will give all of us the option to follow up with each other on something if needed.

• Not using chat often enough – we use this intermittently (for instance, I generally only sign on the Google chat when I remember or need to send a message), but one of the speakers mentioned that his team uses this as way to let everyone know that they’ve arrived “in the office”. I love this idea. If we’re logged in, the others know we’re available.

• Possibly relying on email too much – This is one that maybe I sort of disagree with. I’ve been so much lately about how “everyone” hates email, that “email is dead”. I disagree because sometimes it’s really the best way to communicate something, especially when dealing with clients. think internally we can find more effective ways to communicate – that’s where the chat will come in. I understand that we can’t use it to collaborate on projects, too much stuff can get lost in complex email threads, but we have a project management tool for those. I also hear: “Don’t use your email as a To-Do list” quite often lately. While I don’t technically do that, I have a separate tool, called a notebook and pen*, I DO leave emails in my inbox until I’m finished with whatever related task or issue is associated with them.

After this event, the CRM stress is gone, I’ll find one when I find one, and continue to use the lead tracking spreadsheet that we have in place. Because my team is contractors, they’re not just working for me – they have other clients to attend, and it’s not feasible for them (or me) to always be logged into a group chat if they’re working, so for now we’ll use it as needed. Both of these will need to be addressed as we grow, so their still a need, just not as much as I originally thought. The immediate need, I realize, is status checks. I think this is an integral part of any a company – that doesn’t have to be a huge burden, just something quick and easy, a way of connecting to each other – and especially important for management to implement before experiencing any growing pains.

*That’s right. As big of a gadget freak as I am, a plain old notebook  and pen serve as my To-Do list. Every evening I write out what I need to do the next day. I remember things almost forever if I write them down. I have yet to find an app that provides me with the feeling of disgust if I have rewrite something on the next day’s list that I didn’t finish or the intense satisfaction of crossing something off that I did.