Keep, Swap, Ditch: A Real-Time Business Tool Audit w/Mallory Musante

Behind every successful business is a series of strategic decisions no one talks about.

In this conversation, Fractional CMO Mallory Musante and I say those quiet parts out loud.  We're giving you a peek behind the curtain at how we decide what tools to keep, swap, and cancel this year - and why.

This is more than an interview. It's an open, honest conversation between business besties about how we evaluate tools based on cost, capacity, simplicity, and actual workflow fit.

We talk through what earned its spot (like Canva, ClickUp, HoneyBook, and ChatGPT), what got cut, and why consolidation often creates more momentum than adding something new.

We also discuss:

• How to tell if a tool is actually driving growth or just keeping you busy
• Using AI as a thought partner without outsourcing your voice
• Reducing meetings and increasing productivity with async tools like Fathom and Loom
• Simplifying your tech stack without slowing your marketing
• When to stay with your "comfort zone" tools and it's time to level up

If you’ve ever wondered whether there's a simpler way to run your business or you're curious how experienced entrepreneurs make real operational decisions, this episode will help you audit your tools with more clarity and confidence.

Links & References:

Come network with us! CLICK HERE to attend your first PWR Connection Network virtual speed networking event at no cost!

Learn more about Mallory Musante and her work here: www.mallorymusante.com

Connect with Mallory on Instagram, Threads or LinkedIn

Transcript

Welcome & Why This Topic

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi Mallory, welcome to the Powerful Woman Rising Podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Yes, I'm so excited to chat with you today. So you applied to be on the podcast a while back, I think, because I probably reached out to you and was like, hey, be on my podcast. Um, and we had a different topic planned, but then I saw an Instagram post that you did about tools that you are keeping and swapping and starting in 2026. And I thought that would be a really fun topic to talk about on the podcast. And you said yes. So here we are.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Yeah, I'm really excited to talk about this. This has been a big conversation. Um, when I posted it, a lot of people reached out and wanted to know more. Have a bunch of clients looking through their tools and systems that they're using now. So excited to chat about this.

Mallory’s Background And Expertise

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yeah, I think it'll be really good. So before we dive in, tell everybody a little bit about you and about what you do.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

So I'm a fractional CMO. I mainly focus on helping small businesses build marketing ecosystems that feel simple, sustainable, and actually drive growth. But also along those lines, I am also a seasoned entrepreneur. This is, I have eight different businesses under my belt. So I am no stranger to trying out all the tools and doing all the marketing strategies and everything, as well as helping my clients too.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Awesome. How long have you been doing this work?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Um, I have been running my fractional CMO consultancy for the last five years now. Wow. Okay. That's amazing. But I've had I've my background's in marketing. Um, and I've had um some other agencies as well prior to this.

Transparency And Sharing Tools Publicly

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, that's awesome. I'm also very impressed because you look like you're about 23. And so I'm like, how have you had a business for five years? Well, thank you. I'm actually 37. That's awesome. Okay, so let's talk about this post. Tell me first your thought process behind sharing this information with people on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

So for as long as I can remember, and probably just because I remember what it's like to start out in business, uh, I have always been really transparent. And I know people love to see that behind the scenes content. I know I love to see I'm nosy. I want to know everything happening in your business. Um, so it was just really natural for me to be like, oh, I'm making these changes. I know a lot of people are probably thinking about this. So let's just share it and see what happens. And also, you know, crowdsourcing anyway. People are gonna share what their experience are with certain tools and everything as well.

Keeping Canva And Design Workflow

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Yeah, I love it. And I think it's it's a good example of like, you know, gatekeeping is a big buzzword right now, and I really hate to use it. But I love that you're not doing that because really, like, I don't care if you've been in business for six months or 20 years, there are things that you don't know, right? Like things are changing every day. There are tools out there that you never even knew existed, and this is how we learn about it, right? We have conversations with other business owners, we share what's working for us, we share what's not working for us anymore, and um, that's how we learn and that's how we grow. So the more you share and people share with you, that's how you figure things out. So let's go through this list. You made a list of the things that you're keeping, the things that you're swapping, and the things that you are ditching. Where do you want to start? Oh, uh, let's start with keeping. Okay, so keeping Canva.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Tell me why. Um, because I do not have the skills to do real design work. Um I'm super, I was gonna say super comfortable with it. I've been using it for a long time. I have all of my fonts, colors, everything already uploaded. I have templates and everything. So just made sense to keep that one.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Yeah, I love Canva so much. I just I took a course that was like about how to organize your Canva and how to have like folders and find things really easily. And I don't know where that course went in my brain, but my Canva is still a hot mess and I have no idea where anything is, but it worked for what it was.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

I was just gonna say, wait, I might actually need that course because mine is not nearly as organized as it could be.

Fathom AI Notes Vs CRM Notetakers

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, I promised the course was great. It's really just me. I think in the in the beginning, I was like, I organized all my folders and everything was so great. And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna name like a big thing was naming things specifically, right? Like all my shit is named Untitled One, Untitled Two, Untitled 888. And if you actually name them, they're much easier to find. And I think I did great at that for like two weeks, and now we're back to untitled 1024. Okay, what about Fathom? Tell us what Fathom does and why you're keeping it.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

So Fathom is an AI note taker. So it automatically joins my calls for me. It actually records them. So I have the video, I get um a transcript, I get uh like summary, there's it spits out action items. So I have everything I need to do, or I can send it to clients or whoever I'm talking to and say, hey, these are kind of the things I need from you. So it just makes it a lot easier, and I don't have to take notes on a call, so I can just be much more present and not have to worry about remembering something, or I can go back and re-watch, um, pull the transcript, things like that. So it makes it a lot easier. I did consider changing this one actually. So we'll get to this next, but I'm using this Honeybook as my CRM and they actually have a note taker. So I luckily my clients are amazing, but I had like multiple AI note takers in our calls with us. So I could test it.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Mallory's 95 note takers are jumping.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Literally. Um, and then I just compared what I would got as the output afterwards, and Fathoms was by far like just so much more comprehensive. So I decided that's something I'm not willing to give up because it is so helpful to have those notes to be able to revisit them and use them when I'm kind of figuring out strategies or need to revisit stuff.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Yeah, I think it's really helpful. My favorite thing about it is that it turns conversations into action items. So like we can sit down. We I use it every time I have a call with my VA and we use it and we have these conversations that are very high level about like, well, maybe we could do this and this and what how would this work? And would we need to do this? And that doesn't necessarily translate into a to-do list in my mind. But then Fathom will take it and be like, okay, here's what Meredith said she would do. Here's what Melissa said she would do. And that has been super, super helpful.

SEO Tracking With Ubersuggest

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yeah. And like it also can be really when you're having a conversation like that where it's almost a little bit more brainstorming to come up with a solution. I think at least my brain sometimes will be like, wait, what did we actually come up with? Right. So being able to go back to that and seeing, okay, we talked about X, Y, and Z, but we decided on this thing is so helpful.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, the next one you said you were keeping is Uber suggest. And I've never heard of it, and I want to know what it is and why you love it.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

So this is actually an SEO like tracking tool. So it kind of helps you understand how your um web your website is performing from like an SEO perspective. So it helps, it kind of like gives you a score, gives you recommendations on things to update, to change. You can do like an audit on your site, um, see where you're ranking for certain keywords. So I like it just to track my own website, but I also use it for clients when I'm building on a strategy or we want to be focused more on SEO. I'll run their site through the audit just to kind of see what's happening on their, you know, do they have meta descriptions, meta titles, are there duplicates, things like that. So we kind of have a good understanding on the overall like kind of SEO health of their website and what changes we need to make. You can also do um some keyword research on there and kind of like see what you can do. It gives you other suggestions and everything. So it's just really helpful from like an SEO perspective, which is one of those things that is really helpful to stay on top of, but hard to stay on top of. So a tool like this helps me do that.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah. I just recently um did an interview with a woman named Kelly Kumler and she does SEO. And part of the problem with having a podcast is I have these really awesome guests, and like halfway through every episode, I'm like, I think I need to hire her. The last one I did was with a guy who was talking about tax strategy, and I was like, okay, I need to hire this guy. But I actually did end up hiring Kelly for SEO because it's one of those things that like you know is important and you know will help, but it feels so like granular and tedious and like nonstop. Like, do you ever get to a point where you're like, great, SEO optimized? No, right? Because it's always changing. And so I love that there is a tool that will help you kind of keep track of it on your own, too.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Yeah, and it's really helpful because you know, I'm guilty, like I know I'm supposed to do these things, but sometimes, you know, you're just putting a blog post up and everything, and I forget to to update the meta description. So if I go in there, it's gonna be like, hello, you're missing a meta description here. It tells you the the like link that it's for the page and everything. So I can actually just say, Oh, okay, it's that blog post. Let me add it in and make it really simple. Um, so it's it's very helpful from that perspective.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, I love that. And is that a free tool or a paid tool, or are there different versions?

SPEAKER_01 10:01

I think there's different versions. I use the paid version, which I believe is$29 a month.

Cost Audits And Subscription Cleanups

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Okay. And when you were making these decisions about the tools that you were gonna keep and swap and not use anymore, what were the factors that you were looking at? Like, were you looking at paid versus free, or was it more about like simplifying or was it everything?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah, so I'm actually glad you brought that up because one of the biggest reasons I started this was I had my bookkeeper run a report for me about all the like recurring subscriptions I have, just so I could kind of look and see what those costs were and everything. And she kind of was like, okay, like here's some some areas that I think you could potentially either consolidate or um do something about or whatever. So I had like a full list that I was paying for so I could say, okay, you know, here's the ones that I don't use as often, or here's something that I think I can maybe see if I can find a less expensive option or a free option. So there was a little bit of that of like what is what's the cost savings and the value that I'm getting out of it, because I'm more than happy to pay for something if I'm getting a lot of value out of it. But if it's, you know, comparable to something else that I could either have for less expensive or for free, and the cost of switching is not too high, then you know, that's kind of what was going through my mind when I was making these decisions.

Loom For Async Communication

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah, that's really smart. And that's a good recommendation for people who are listening, just periodically to look through like the things that you are still paying for. That's how I realized I had two Microsoft Office subscriptions and one expires in September and one expires in December. And I'm like, how did this happen? Um, but that's the kind of stuff that's like, we don't notice that unless we really stop to look. And I have, you know, the site that I host my podcast on. You can pay$12 a month for this like magic remastering that fixes your sound and cuts out the background noise and stuff. But then I also have this like way more expensive software that I'm using that does a lot of the same things. And so I'm like, why do I have both of these things? So yeah, I that's another reason I wanted to have this conversation and share it because people may hear about something that they're like, oh, I didn't realize that that does this and this. Why don't I just get that one thing instead of paying for these two things? Yeah, exactly. I love that. Okay, so the next one that you use and that you're keeping is Loom. Tell us about that decision.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Um, Loom is I'm I'm already on a ton of calls. Um, so sometimes it's just easier to like show your screen, walk someone through something, and it's a lot easier to just be able to do that than try to coordinate schedules and everything. Cuts down a lot of those like meetings that are maybe not as necessary. So love that one. I will say I've actually had some people suggest um, like, I think it's Google Vids. I haven't tried it yet, so I don't actually know what it is, but that is potentially something that will get swapped out in the future. Um, if I have a chance to kind of play around with Google Vids and see if that actually works or not for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Why do you like recording videos through Loom versus just like getting on a Zoom by yourself and recording and sharing your screen? Is there a difference?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Um this storage, I think, piece of things. So Loom, you don't have to worry about additional, you know how like for um Zoom you can record like to your laptop or like to your desktop or have like their storage. I found that Zoom's storage options are like a lot more limited. And then if I just do it to my desktop, then I have to upload it to uh YouTube, make it unlisted and do all of that. And it's just additional extra steps where Loom, like I just have like the uh desktop app. So I just click it, record it, and then it just like goes up, click the the link and share it with my client or whoever I want to share it with. Um and you can also kind of like more easily edit um if you if you need to like make some adjustments and stuff, you can make some adjustments right in there as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yeah, that's what I figured that it's easier to share through Loom. And Loom is such a good tool, like you were saying, for people who do marketing or for somebody who does SEO or even like for my VA who like I'm happy for her to know how to do all the things and me never to know how to do all the things. But also I'm aware, like sometimes I'm like, okay, can you record a video showing me how to do that? Because like you may not be here forever. You may not be my VA forever. And so I think it's really a helpful tool to be able to just like walk through, walk somebody through something quickly. And like it's helpful for me because then I can go back and reference the video as many times as I need to without having to bug her and be like, wait, where did you say I was supposed to go for that?

Beautiful AI For Presentations

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah, so I actually do all of my when I build an actual strategy for clients, I record, I do it in phases, but I record a video presenting either the market research brand strategy or the marketing strategy. They get all three. Um, but it's really nice. So they then have that recording that they can watch, you know, three months, six months, a year from now to reference. They also get the actual strategy, but sometimes you don't really remember the like nuance or um what I meant by a certain thing. So you can go back and watch those as well. But I also use it as like SOPs for my VA. I just had a client um where we need to build out a webinar page on their website. So I was talking to their web team and he was like, I think we actually have a page that you could just duplicate and like use this. So he did a Loom for me and we had like already scheduled a call. And I was like, all right, let's we can cancel that call now. Like I have my answer. So it was really nice in that regard where you know, we just quickly could kind of come up with a solution and then not have to have a scheduled call for it.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Yeah, that's awesome. It's the new updated version of like this meeting could have been an email. Yes.

unknown 16:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Okay, what about beautiful AI?

SPEAKER_01 16:29

So this is a tool that I think is probably a lot less well known. Um, so it's basically a presentation builder. Um, that's AI. So they have kind of like these smart slides where you can um choose a template. It kind of like automatically resizes things for you and everything. So the the way I know them is I actually was approached by them to do a partnership. Um, so luckily I have free access to the account. If I didn't, I'm not sure if I would still use it. I mean, I love it, but I'm I think my brain would be like, well, I have Canvas, so I don't necessarily need this. It would take me a lot longer to build things in Canva or Google Slides or something like that, where beautiful AI, they just already have these like really nice sleek templates. It just works really well. So actually, all of my client um strategies and everything are built right in there. So I already kind of have like a base right there. So again, that's potentially kind of a cost of switching piece of things. I also, like I said, with Canva, I'm not a full-blown designer. So spending time on like moving things around and making sure it looks really nice is like not really where I want to be spending my time or not where I'm shining the best. Um, I'm much more better on like the strategy analytical side of things. So if I can focus on that and putting that together and having something that is going to help me present that in a way that is really easy to digest for my clients, that's really the the biggest piece for me there.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah, I can see how that would be really beneficial if you were like a speaker or you taught a lot of courses or did a lot of presentations. It it would save you a ton of time.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Yeah, yeah, I really I love it. It's um it definitely saves me. I should actually that I was gonna say I should see how long it would take me to build in Canva versus beautiful AI, but I already know it'd be hours compared to And it still probably wouldn't look as good.

Using ChatGPT As A Thought Partner

SPEAKER_00 18:35

No, no, it definitely would not. That's awesome. I'll definitely have to check that out. I've never heard of that one. And so um, while we're talking about AI, let's talk about Chat GPT, because that's the one that you were keeping. Tell me how you use chat.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Um, so I use chat. So if we're going back to Fathom, sometimes I have it help with summarizing a transcript in like a more easily digestible way. Um, I sometimes will actually say, hey, what are the biggest insights from this call? And then I actually use that for my content. So instead of having to remember things that I said on a call that would apply to other people that I want to share in my content, um, I just have it kind of spit out some insights and then I'll say, oh, okay, cool. And then I write it for myself. Um sometimes I do have it help with some copywriting, obviously not the best for that, but I sometimes just need that kind of like base to go off of, and then I can, you know, make all the adjustments to it. Um analyzing data, doing some research, a lot of a lot of tasks, honestly. Obviously, it's not always the the best and the most accurate, but it does help kind of speed up some of some of the process for me.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Yeah. And do you use it much for like marketing, whether it's for yourself or your clients or like copywriting, content creation, that kind of stuff, or is it more, do you use it more for like brainstorming ideas and then you do your own words?

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Um, it's definitely a lot more kind of brainstorming, where I'm almost trying to use it as a little bit more of a thought partner um to help kind of get me kind of going. But every now and then I will say, like, okay, now can you take this and turn it into a LinkedIn post or take this and turn it into an email or something like that? Um, I'm pretty much never happy with what it exactly spits out. Um, but it at least gives me that base to start from. So I'm not starting from scratch. Again, it speeds up the process for me a little bit. Um, so I can kind of make it sound like me. I can put in kind of the the really key pieces that I think are the most important for whatever that that content piece is.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Yeah. I use it that way a lot when it's something that I've already written myself, but then I'll put it into chat and say, can you optimize this post for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn? And it's still basically the same post, but written in a little bit of a different format. And I don't know if it's actually optimized for LinkedIn. I mean, it's more optimized than it would be if I wrote it, I guess. So just go with it. But yeah, I think it's super helpful for that kind of thing. And, you know, I everybody's got their opinions about chat and AI and how we're using it. And I would, if I had a magic wand, I would totally go back to the days when we didn't have smartphones and we didn't have social media and we didn't have Chat GPT, but I can't do that. So I have gotten on board and embraced it, figured out how to use it in a way that is really effective for me. And yeah, like you said, there's sometimes it saves me so much time when there's like a sentence or like something that I'm trying to say, and I know what I'm trying to say, but I know the way that I'm saying it doesn't make sense. Or it doesn't like sound, I know there's a better way to say it. And it's so nice to just be able to put it in there and be like, what am I actually trying to say? Or like, can you make this more concise or more clear? Otherwise, I would have sat here for probably 30 minutes trying to figure out how to rewrite it. And I love it. Yeah.

Scheduling Content With Later

SPEAKER_01 22:16

I was gonna say I use it for that a lot too. And like to kind of piggyback off what you're saying, AI, love or hate it, you know, it's here. And if you don't want to use it, that's totally fine. But I also think that understanding how you work and what would be the most supportive for you is actually kind of the best way to use, whether it's Chat GPT, Claude, or any, you know, AI, um, understanding kind of what would be the most supportive for you is probably the best way to utilize it.

unknown 22:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Kind of also understanding just kind of how AI works and everything too is really helpful. But yeah, I think that's kind of the approach I take, the approach I always kind of recommend for my clients to take as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

And did you try other things like Claude or things like that and come back to Chat GPT? Or have you always been with chat?

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Um, I'm pretty much always been with chat. I did try Claude, um, it feels like a million years ago, probably was not that long ago. Last week. Um, and I well, I was gonna say, I have recently, I was like really annoyed with ChatGPT earlier, um, the newest version. I was like, this is not giving me what I used, like it's just not as good as what I used to get. So I had considered, you know, checking out Claude again. Um, but I got Chat GPT back on my side. So we're we're sticking with it for now. And I and I don't want to have multiple subscriptions and everything. I know there's a lot of business owners out there that do use both because they're better for different tasks and everything. But I think that's just I'm I'm trying to consolidate this year. I don't need to add more.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Yeah, yeah. I tried going to Claude, and we'll talk about this when we go, talk about Zoom and Google Meet, but I had the same issue that I had with that, which was like, I was like, yeah, this is good. But then it was like, I don't know where all the things are, and it doesn't know all the things that ChatGPT already knows. And I've got folders set up in ChatGPT and I've got bots in Chat GPT, and it knows the things. And so I just like I tried and then I was like, okay, let me go back to my little comfort zone.

Project Management In ClickUp

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yeah, I was gonna say, I've like feel like I've trained Chat GPT pretty good to kind of like understand what I'm actually looking for. Yeah. Um, and everything.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

So yeah, and I think that's an important point too with your list for the year, is that there's not a ton of things that you are swapping out or getting rid of, right? But like, and I think that's important too because there are so many things. Like I recently switched my CRM to FG funnels, which is like just so I love it so much for so many reasons, but it is not intuitive and it is not easy to use. And so it has just like overloaded my brain capacity. So it might be not that complicated to switch to Google Me. It might not be that complicated to switch to Claude, but for my brain right now, like I gotta do one thing at a time. And so I like that about your list too. It's very constrained. It's not like, okay, we're gonna change 10 things this year. I would I would not be able to handle that.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Your girl does not do well with change in general, so I would not be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Yeah, I totally get it. Okay, one of the other ones that you mentioned that you were keeping is later. What does that do?

SPEAKER_01 25:33

That is essentially it allows me to schedule my content so I can write my content um ahead of time, create the graphics and everything, and then have just schedule it to go out. Um, so back in the day, I actually used to be a social media manager. That's just been always the habit I've been in is write content ahead of time, batch it, schedule it, and then it just kind of goes out. Um, so that just allows me to easily do that. A lot of the platforms you can schedule natively through. Um, but I like to because I'm scheduling for like multiple things. I also have another business that I schedule for. So just being able to see it on like a calendar of when I have what going out for each platform is just it makes it so much clearer for me of like, okay, I need to write content for this now or this now and kind of map out what I need to do and what I need to prioritize.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yeah. Does it also show you like analytics and things like that? It does.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Yep. Awesome. I mostly use the more like native platform analytics, but sometimes I will peek into the later's analytics because it has a little bit different information.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Yeah. I use Metrocool, which is similar for scheduling in advance. And one of the things that I like about it is after you've been using it for a while, it will show you on the calendar. Like I can switch it to Instagram mode and it will show me on the calendar. Like 92% of people are looking at your stuff at 1 p.m. And so I know, like, okay, this is the best time to schedule it, which has made things a little more intentional and strategic rather than just like, I guess I'll post this now because I just thought of it.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Yeah, yeah. Later does something similar too.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, and then the last one you have that you're keeping this year is clickup. How are you using that?

SPEAKER_01 27:17

That is essentially my project management. Um, it's just me, so not all that.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

But there's a lot of projects to manage.

Ditching Zapier And Proposal Changes

SPEAKER_01 27:27

There are a lot of projects to manage, and it also just is easier for like a while. I I've always been kind of like a pen and paper girl. I switched to digital for a while with one of my previous businesses. Um, and then I went back to planner because I had a planner company, so I was using my own planner. Um, and then I realized that it just I was being overly ambitious every single day, and I was not crossing everything off of my to-do list. So things got moved to the next day, to the next day, to the next day, and everything was just a mess. And it was actually making it harder for my brain to understand what I needed to do. So I was like, I need to go back to digital. So I used clickup all last year, really liked it. Super easy. I had someone help me set it up. Um, and I also have the app. So if I in the shower and I remember I need to do something, I can just, you know, once I'm out, add it in without having to go down or find my laptop and add it. So, or my planner or whatever, you know, other methods I was using. Um, so I could just kind of just do it right from my phone and it made it a lot easier. So um, it just made it easier for me to not have such a cluttered brain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Yeah. I think having something like that is really helpful when you, I mean, I don't know if this is just people with ADHD or if other people are like this too, but when you have like 98 great ideas a day and most of them happen in the shower, and most of them I don't remember like 30 seconds after I had them. So to be able to, especially now that we can like voice to text, to be able to say, like, hey, I just had this great idea, make a note of it so I can come back to it later has been really, really helpful.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Yeah, definitely. Uh that's so funny. Yeah, I actually used to have a whiteboard. I put a whiteboard in my bedroom so I could write down my shower thoughts. Oh, Mallory's great idea.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

See, I just put a dry erase marker in the shower.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

That's I mean, that's way more efficient. I'd have to repeat it until I got out of the shower.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Exactly. Yeah. My um VA created we communicate with each other through Slack, and she created a Slack channel very early on in our relationship called Braindump. And she was like, How about every great idea you just put in here? Because it was like the other channels were for things that we were actually executing on and things that were really happening. And I was like, What about this great idea? What if we do this? And what if we tried this? And she was like, Okay, let's put all these over here. And she's very great about like, you know, I've moved on. I had 50 great ideas since that one. And she's very good about coming back to like, remember that great idea you had 50 ideas ago? Do you still want to do that or no? And I'm like, what? I didn't did I come up with that? Oh, what a great idea again.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Honestly, that's actually a really good idea. I might have to add a channel um to brain dump all my ideas in.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

It's very helpful. Yeah. Or even just having like a like voice note section where I can just every time I think of something, I can record it into there on my phone is really helpful for keeping track of stuff. Yeah. Okay, awesome. So those are the things that you're keeping this year. Let's talk about the things that you are ditching. Okay, there's only one and it hurts my heart. So please help me.

Swapping Moxie For HoneyBook

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Yep, it is um zapier. And the only reason I'm ditching this is because I kind of changed, and it actually goes with swapping. Um, so we'll just skip ahead. I'm swapping Moxie, which was my old CRM for Honey Book, which is actually funny because it was Honey Book, then Moxie, then I went back to Honey Book. But I am ditching Xapier because we had set up a bunch of automations and everything for Moxie. And since I wasn't using that anymore, I changed that. And then I also am kind of changing how I've done proposals previously. So I was typically just doing them right through my CRM, sending over, had the contract, had the you know, invoice and things like that, um, which made it really, really easy. But I've kind of shifted into working with more organizations that that's not their typical process that they go through. So I actually have switched back to creating my proposals in Canva. Um, depending on who it is, sometimes I will actually at the very end be like, if you're ready to like move forward, click here and it will take them to their um contract and invoice. So it just makes it a lot easier. But sometimes it's just, you know, let me know if you'd like to move forward kind of a thing. Um so I don't need all of those automations as much. So it would have been a a waste of money, essentially. So that's why I'm ditching Zapier. Okay, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

So a lot of the automations that you are still using are directly in Honeybook. Yes, exactly. Okay, that works. Yeah, I use Zapier a lot because like FG funnels I love so much because there's so many things that you can do inside of it, but also it stresses me out because then you have like everything in one place. So, like if that goes down, everything goes down with it. Um, so let's just all say a little prayer that it never happens. But I also use other things, you know, like I've had a lot of luck with Eventbrite bringing people to my networking events. I run ads on Eventbrite, they're super cheap. I've gotten really good results from them. And I also don't want to have to like export the list of orders from Eventbrite and then import it into FTFunnels. And it's so much easier to just like set up a zap and have all that do it itself. Um, so yeah, so you don't you don't not love Zapier. It's just not what you need right now.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

I was gonna say it's not because I didn't like it or anything like that. It just was no longer necessary for for me personally.

Moving From Zoom To Google Meet

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Yeah, totally makes sense. Anything else you want to add about your decision to switch from Moxie to Honey Book for your CRM?

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Um I don't think so. That was pretty much kind of the gist of it.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Okay. And do you use your CRM? Is it primarily just for like keeping track of your contacts and reaching out to your email list and your current clients, that kind of thing? Or is does it do more than that?

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Um, I'm primarily using it for like lead generation. Okay. In not necessarily my email list, but all of my forms on my website are um honeybook. It's embedded from Honeybook. Um, so anyone that contacts me gets put into the CRM. Obviously, sometimes it's you know a spam email or something. So I gotta remove them. Um but it's just a little bit easier to kind of track, like I can track what stage I have certain people in and and things like that, and kind of see if I have a project, like the timeline of that, and kind of see what the overlap is so I know what my next availability is and things along those lines.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. All right, so the last one that you're swapping, I didn't even save this for last on purpose, but here we are. You're swapping Zoom for Google Meet. We are on Zoom currently, so the Zoom gods are listening to us and their feelings are also hurt. But tell us about your decision to switch from Zoom to Google Meet.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Also, not a thing because I don't like Zoom. It is purely because I was already paying for Google Suite. So I'm already paying for it. I might as well use Google Meet. Um, I'm not hosting big webinars or meetings. It's usually one-on-one or maybe a couple of people. Um, so I didn't really need anything really robust. Google Meet um has been working great. Again, that was something that I tested out before I decided to make this switch to see if I liked it, to see if, you know, I also asked all of my long-term clients if they would mind because I wanted to make sure we're using tools that they they're happy to use as well. So it was kind of a longer process um because yeah, that one was that one was probably the hardest decision because I was just like, I'm so used to Zoom. And like I was saying before we hit record, like it's been a whole learning process. I have to learn where all the buttons are. I still often don't know where they are and and everything. But so far it's been a good switch. And you know, we'll see how how that one goes. But it's been good so far.

Comfort Zones, Features, And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Yeah, we get so into our comfort zones, and like I just Zoom is so easy for me. I know how to do all the things. Although Zoom keeps adding things that I'm like, what is this? I don't know how to do this. What but somebody had a uh like countdown the other day and it like started making a noise when the countdown went off? And I was like, oh, there's a countdown. Now I have to learn this. Um, but generally it's like, yeah, it feels like feels like a little comfort zone, a little safety zone over here on Zoom. Um, this is a very important question. Has Google Meet added a touch up my appearance feature yet? I'm not sure actually. This is my biggest beef with getting off of Zoom. So we do this is TMI, but I'm gonna tell it anyway because this whole conversation feels like just like letting people listen to a conversation between two business besties. We do couples counseling on virtually, and I always want to be like, dude, of all the platforms that should have touch up my appearance, it's this one. Like, I don't need anything that's making me look worse during this call. I get on Zoom and I'm like, oh, I look so cute. Because listen, I have touch up my appearance turned all the way up, people. I will be honest about that. And then I get on another platform and I'm like, do I really look like that? What is happening right now? So okay, you need to report back whether Google Meet has added touch up my appearance.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

I was gonna say, I'm like such this is like also a part of why I am looking, you know, did this whole exercise and everything. I just like use such basic features on everything in my brain. I'm like, I didn't even know that was an option on here. You mean I could be looking better on all of my calls?

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Well, I don't know if you could, but I could. Yeah, I don't need cat ears or to look like a rhinoceros. I just need a little, a little smoothing here. Okay, that's awesome. This has been really good. I told you at the beginning, I was like, I don't know if this is gonna be really weird or if this was a great idea. I think it was a great idea because I do too. I really do feel like it gave people like it really was listening to just two like business friends have a conversation about the decisions that they're making and what they're using and what's working and how they're making those decisions. And I love the transparency that you have on your Instagram and in this conversation and um just appreciate you sharing your thought processes and what's working for you. And I think this has been really helpful.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Awesome. Well, that makes me really happy. I love to uh share all the behind the scenes. And like I said, I'm nosy. So I'm like, if I share, other people will share and then I get to know what's happening behind the scenes too. Yeah.

Where To Connect With Mallory

SPEAKER_00 39:05

So I'll put a link to your Instagram in the show notes so people can follow you there. You post some great content on Instagram. If they want to know more about you, about what you do, stay in touch with you. What other ways can they do that?

SPEAKER_01 39:17

So Instagram, definitely. I'm also on threads or LinkedIn. And then also my website has kind of all of all of the things, which is mallardmusante.com.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Awesome. I will put the link to your website in the show notes and also your social media so people can connect with you. And thank you again for coming and chatting with me.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.