We kick of Season 5 of the podcast with a host of returning Podio champions (and an awesome new champion Jennie). It's a great start to the season as we dive into a lot of common mistakes people make when first starting with Podio.
This is a superb opportunity to learn from a group of people who have been there and got the t-shirt. Explore some of the ways that these experts set up and introduce Podio to their customers and learn some of the problems you can avoid!
Show Links:
Quivvy Solutions: https://quivvy.com/en
Quivvy Tools: https://quivvytools.com/
Private Guru (Joel Ordesky): https://www.privateguru.net/about
Damien Ruggieri from DealPro.
Watch this episode on YouTube here
Please don’t forget to leave us a review and subscribe to the Podcast and if you’d like to be a guest on an upcoming show please register your interest at https://bit.ly/supercharged-guest
We kick of Season 5 of the podcast with a host of returning Podio champions (and an awesome new champion Jennie). It's a great start to the season as we dive into a lot of common mistakes people make when first starting with Podio.
This is a superb opportunity to learn from a group of people who have been there and got the t-shirt. Explore some of the ways that these experts set up and introduce Podio to their customers and learn some of the problems you can avoid!
Show Links:
Quivvy Solutions: https://quivvy.com/en
Quivvy Tools: https://quivvytools.com/
Private Guru (Joel Ordesky): https://www.privateguru.net/about
Damien Ruggieri from DealPro.
Watch this episode on YouTube here
Please don’t forget to leave us a review and subscribe to the Podcast and if you’d like to be a guest on an upcoming show please register your interest at https://bit.ly/supercharged-guest
Welcome to Supercharged with Jordan Samuel Fleming, your weekly podcast dedicated to what your business can achieve when it's powered by Podio. Join us each week as we learn from the top Podio partners in the world as we investigate system integrations and add ons and hear from real business owners who have implemented Podio into their business. Now join Jordan Samuel Fleming, CEO of smrtphone for this week's episode.
Jordan Fleming:Hey, everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of supercharged, I'm your host, Jordan Samuel Fleming here to talk all about the power of workflow and automation, when your business is powered by Podio. Now, Season Five kicks off. It's been a while I must admit, I've had a lot on a lot of things growing up with smartphone. And some news of course. You know, as you've guessed from if you've been to the we are game changers.com website, we are game changes is now closed as a political consultancy. It's moved on, I simply needed to concentrate more on smartphone as it's growing. And I wanted to turn the we are game changers.com site into much more of a Podio sort of resource for people as we will no longer and I certainly I will no longer be building Podio. But of course the amazing team from Game Changers has moved on into a very cool company in Canada called synchrony headed up by Andrew Cranston, who is the former CEO. Slash first off the CTO of gauges then CEO, he's now created his own company to take all the amazing things that you do forward and I can't wait to see what they do. And hit them up over on their website. It'll be in the podcast description when we interview him. For this podcast, great start to the season where I get another group episode. God I love group episodes, so much fun to talk to my fellow Podio partners. We sort of start the podcast by focusing on some of the mistakes we've made. In the past. Just a great opportunity to listening to a group of people who have designed, built, implemented, supported Podio for years and years and years to talk about some of their key challenges, key opportunities, things they've learned while building Podio over the years for themselves and for their customers. It's really fun episode. I always love it when I can get a group together and I can chat with them. Great way of kicking off season five. And of course, just before I dive into this amazing podcast, please do head over to the we are game changers.com website and check out our new masterclass, check out our YouTube channel that is there as well. So you can make sure you subscribe to get new videos. And if you listen to this podcast and you enjoyed a why not be a guest someday hit me up we are game changers are calm. And be give us a like, give us a review, share the podcast spread the love of Podio. Now, let's get back to this amazing podcast. Let's, let's let's just take off, let's kick off this podcast. I'll do a very, very quick round the room sort of introduction, just say who you are, which company you work with, and how actually how long you've worked with Podio because I think that's quite an interesting one. And what time zone you're in, because this is another one of those international ones. So why don't we kick off with my top right hand corner which is Jenny.
Jenny Sherwood:I am Jenny Sherwood. Um, I've been using Podio for what Joel about three years. And I work with Joel.
Jordan Fleming:Excellent. And you are in?
Jenny Sherwood:Oh yeah, Pacific Time. greater LA.
Jordan Fleming:You're another year another psci. Right. Well, in which case, let's nip over to Joel who's on my top left hand corner.
Joel Ordesky:I'm Julie deskey. The company's private guru. I've been using Podio for 10 years plus I was very early on as a user, but I'd been a partner for about six years now. Five, six years, and I'm in Los Angeles as well.
Jordan Fleming:So that's specific and Damien down there.
Damien:Hey, Damien Ruggeri and I have been using Podio for about four years now. So relatively new still with Podio. We've got a partner. This is a second year as a partner and I am in central standard time in beautiful Dallas, Texas. So if you're in the Dallas area hit me
Jordan Fleming:drill, and let's go in the middle to Bebo.
Bavo De Cooman:Oh, I am Bavo I am. I have been working with polio for three years, two years as a as a very base Sick user and one year as a slightly more professional user. I started working for Mike with quibi. Last year, and since then have learned a lot about Podio. And I'm in the cet timezone calling in from Belgium. Mike. Yeah.
Mike Demunter:So, as well for experience, Mike from Quivvy and Quivvy tools, so some people might know me from the project community. Yeah, we're in the Belgian timezone. So it's eight o'clock in the evening around here. And we're still ready to go for this extremely well done podcasts.
Jordan Fleming:And, of course, I'm the host, Jordan, and I've been actually So Joe, you're in the 2 million mark, for the private guru one. I don't know what your other one is. But I've been using Podio since about 2011 2010 2011 ish, 2011 ish, and been a partner for a while. And obviously, game changes, which is my podium, my public company, Andrew Cranston has taken over the reins of that company. And I have taken over as CEO of smartphone. So the only phone system fully built for Podio. If you don't use it, you should. So I thought, since it's always fun when you get a Podio kind of partner kind of roundtable to talk about things that go wrong. All the time, all the ways we've screwed up and looked at the mistakes we've made and ways to kind of advise people not to. So I thought it'd be fun if we could think a little bit around some of the biggest mistakes you guys have ever made. In thinking in your Podio. When you either when you first did, or as you started developing the more complex systems, some of the kind of biggest mistakes or biggest things you thought would work out and that didn't and I'll start the ball rolling I'll I'll open myself up to the shitty end of the stick. And that is a over aggressively using separate workspaces. For data security point of view. i We are we were constantly we were constantly asked, because because one of the flaws of Podio, I think is the relatively limited permissioning or security features inside of the structure, right? Like you can't have app based permissions, you can't lock down certain things, or, or only see some items, you know, you've gotten your all or nothing if you're in the workspace, you've seen it. So that always meant with a lot of people, they overly we got sensitive about it and kind of came to us we're like, we need a separate workspace for every department. And we need this, you know, this, and what and when we first started doing Podio building, we probably did it more than we should have, we were like, Okay, well guess if that's what you want. And it ended up being a data management nightmare. And you know, of trying to move things from sub workspaces to the master workspaces and trying to make sure that duplications didn't happen, or the data that you didn't get in front of lots of comments. That was a big one that always happened and things like that. So that's certainly one of the you know, the the I think the way if you're just getting into Podio, there's often too much of a worry about that. I think, what do you guys think about that?
Joel Ordesky:I think that's a big thing. Yeah,
Damien:I would agree as well. It's it's huge. I have clients, like still, I don't want my sales guy to see what my disposition guys doing. And like, why not, you know, if you're, if you're that concern, I think about, you know, the people that are working for you maybe do a little bit, work on your hiring process, possibly, you know, get a little bit more stringent on on the security before you bring them onto your team.
Joel Ordesky:I agree there's a lot of it's, you know, as because I do some side business coaching and that you flip into business coach mode when this comes up, and you say, all right, are you making a business decision here? Or are you just making a knee jerk decision? And you know, what, actually, are you trying to prevent someone from seeing and is there a legitimate business reason for these people not to be able to see it? Also say that sometimes it's not using Podio correctly and and that that everyone's a regular user? And I'm like, employees should always be a light user and the moment they become a light user. So every one I mean, this is probably the biggest thing for everyone. I think you can't find a client who is making the mistake because regulars the default. It used to be your thing so everyone was admitted. because you, you were an admin and you added people every week came in as an admin, they changed it. So the defaults regular, but the default really shouldn't be like, and then you bump them up if you have to bump them up. But the fact that you can export records, if your regular, you know, you just say, Hey, do you really want every one of your employees, even your good friend who's your buddy should not be regular, because I've seen that go wrong too many times.
Jordan Fleming:100% agree. And if some light users are my default for everybody, you got to convince me that you you deserve and it's not even about trust, it's about the ability to fuck up a system. Like I, you know, my view is everybody's stupid until they prove me they're not. And, and so I view that everybody that goes into one of the systems should be absolutely a light user, until they convince me that they that they're capable of not breaking everything. And that usually does not happen.
Damien:New users, right? There's people that are never seen Podio before they're coming from something else, or are just, you know, they're fresh on your team. Podio can be overwhelming, especially depending on the permissions that you have. And then seeing, Oh, I can connect to this. I can connect,
Jordan Fleming:I can click Modify template, what? What is this? Oh, I
Damien:deleted this. Yeah, they delete some field. And now everything's broken, you know. So I agree like users the way to go?
Mike Demunter:Apps absolutely think the I think the flexibility of Podio is both its advantage and a disadvantage at the very same time, where you can really build something really quick, and it looks kind of neat. But you can also go in the completely wrong direction, if you do something quick. And it still requires you to think about it, lay out the plan beforehand, especially since copying apps to another workspace, etc. It's not that easy to do. It's still, you can't get started that three minutes and build something nice. But maybe you should think a little bit before you do that actually, and lay out the plan. Throw out a map or something of what you want to achieve. And and go from there.
Jordan Fleming:Absolutely, absolutely. I'm, I'm a woodworker as a hobbyist, and it's like, measure for times cut once or waste a lot of wood that you spent a lot of money on. So, you know, kind of up to you. And I think the same principle applies to Podio. Let me ask a follow up just and then alternative you guys for questions. But let me ask a follow up to that kind of multi workspace. One of the other things I often hear new companies that come into Podio talk about is like say we built a project management system as a basic version. And they they're like, Oh, I think we should have a workspace for each department. Because it's not that they don't want the other people seeing the project is they think there'll be noise that they can't get across the view element and how powerful just having views is to focus your effort. And until you really get the understanding of views. I think I can understand it. But I always push people. No, no, no, no, no, let's have everybody in this one place. And just use the view. Do you guys find that for new, like as a problem? Or? And how do you tend to talk about that with
Mike Demunter:people? Well, one of the things I stress in our company is that every single piece of data should only exist once in your complete organisation. So if when you start copying workspaces, etc, to do basically the same thing, but in a different workspace, in my opinion, you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong. Every piece of information should only exist once. And Marco can confirm that I can be quite a pain in the ass about that. But I can stress that I can't stress that enough. Yes.
Joel Ordesky:I think one of the things is that that a really big user mistake at the start is to make preconceived notions about what Podio is. It is you know, if you ask someone who's new to the platform, they're like, it's a CRM, it's a project management tool. It's a it's a typed up this or a hyped up that it's like, no, you're wrong. Because if you take those preconceived notions and you don't take the time to learn about views and dynamic views, even more important than a view, so you know, how many trying to get a client to understand to use the myself user token in a view so that you can say because and this goes back to the I don't want my guys to see each other stuff. It's like okay, active leads, my active leads using them. myself token, so that that Jenny's looks different than mine looks different than likes, works different than Jordans so that they only see their stuff. People are like, Oh my god, I just I can't conceive that. And therefore it's hard for them to accept those views will work that way. So understanding views, understanding context, in how Podio items work with contextual information, if you don't understand this before you start building and be like saying, Hey, I've done a lot of work in wood. And now I'd like to start making things out of metal. And it's, you know, what's the difference? You know, wood joining, you know, spot welding, it's all the same stuff.
Jordan Fleming:Yeah, no, I that's absolutely. And also, I think you make a really good point about and a question I suppose I have for everybody is, you know, how do you guys go about, if you've got an organisation that comes to you who's never used? Podio? Right. And they, and they've come to you to solve a business, you know, case or need, and you decide to do it in Podio? Or you push them into you say, Yep, let's go the Podio and you sell them on Podio? How do you guys approach upskilling? them in the basics of Podio? Because it really like, do you use the Podio? resources, which are? Okay, or like, do you do you go through your own sort of structure of the here's the Podio, basics live? I've got a video set, like, what do you guys do to that for that, because I think I still see people who have used Podio for three or four years, who don't know some of the basics of like, of data filtering of being able to filter a big ass app down to exactly the data set I want and creating a view out of it. And if you don't know that you're missing out on a really big part of what makes Podio sing. How do you guys approach getting people off the ground? In that way? Can I be interested in hearing that?
Damien:So for for us, what we usually do is, depending on the client, you know, if we're just doing like one fixing an app that they already have, or something like that, obviously, we're not going to do this. But when we're talking about a company coming to you and putting together a whole organisation or workspace for them, we have like a premade template for tutorials. AP, and then we just installed it in the workspace. And then we have a set of videos that we just automatically instal like how to use views, how, how to filter data, you know, how to export leads, how to do this, how to do that. And those all Bucha comes right into this template. Yep. And it's just easy. We just installed it, and there it goes. And then for whatever we've done custom in their workspace, we give them a guide, like, Hey, you want to do this, here's how to do it. And it's just all very Barney basic style. And in in, there's a little voting tabs, right, we use the voting tabs for them, you know, we have it just changed, you know, did you view the training? Yes. Do you clearly understand it, you know, give it the star rating. And that's it. And so, as we're working with them, we go back, and we see a lot of them with like, three, two or three stars like, alright, you know, they're really dumb, right? Probably not, but more, or we need to work on the training, right? So if, if 10 People aren't understanding what you're trying to convey, there's something wrong with the training and providing. So that's how we do the feedback. There's like, Alright, cool, we got a bunch of three stars, let's go check that video out and make something better.
Jordan Fleming:That's an interesting way of doing it. What about Joe? You know, Jenny, Joe, what? How do you guys approach it that kind of get off the ground with the fundamentals? Hey, are you using Podio to manage your real estate investment business? Click the link to find out why 1000s of real estate investment professionals are using Podio plus smartphone to make more calls, send more text and close more deals, click the link,
Joel Ordesky:I do a lot of I spent a lot of time with a customer upfront, I'll probably spend an hour maybe even an hour and a half with a client in a pre client call. Where we run through their specific need, I kind of take the approach of being the custom made clothes clothes here, you know, whether it's a suit or it's a wedding dress, or it's or whatever, that's my mantra that I say to them that, you know, look, this is, you know, yes, you can take something off the rack and we can maybe tailor it to you but we also might start from scratch and a lot of places and I try to sometimes encourage clients especially if they're off if you have someone who's like I've had several clients company who do storage units, right? They're trying to use the wholesaling template. It's just wrong for them. I'm like, This is not You're not a wholesaler, you're not you're buying storage facilities and manage and storage facilities, there's nothing like this is like wholesaling. So the the issues and so then you take them to something that's very similar to their thing and show them how this operates and say, Okay, look how we're using these dynamic views in this example, and kind of guide them in to where the potential is, so that they then can see themselves what they can use. And then you kind of make notes of what it is there that resonates with them. So that when if they engage, you bring them back to those elements, you know, and as you build, you demonstrate to them, how to roll those elements in for them. You know, I think one of the mistakes I see very common for new users is they're like, Okay, I downloaded a template off the app marketplace, more often than not three times are three different ones in one workspace, which is just dead wrong. I had someone the other day who had bills, real estate investment, one in twice, every flow was doubled up, and it was just it was, it was a mess, you know,
Jordan Fleming:but you workspace.
Joel Ordesky:I think that for us is start with a new workspace if you can, if they're not too far down the road. Because, you know, sometimes a template isn't your friend. But I think it's it's that that that Ginny and I worked for a company where we call this customer intimate approach, where we become partners with you more than that. So we want to like get into your business and your workflows and really make something that is unique to your need. And then they it resonates and it gets with them.
Jenny Sherwood:And then that sends to you're just in constant training mode. You know, so I'm every time I'm, I'm, I'm with a client, I'm training, even if I'm not explicitly training, I'm I am.
Jordan Fleming:Absolutely, and that's a good actually, that's a good point it because there's, it's almost the tacit reinforcement that you do every single interaction with them. That isn't like we're organising a training session. But we are just constantly that you know, leading from the front with best practice and with making sure that you're doing the right things. Mike, what about you, too? Like? How do you guys approach that kind of the fundamental building blocks of Podio?
Mike Demunter:Yeah, what we tried to do is, yeah, guide the customer along with every step that we're doing, explaining what we're doing, and let them get into stuff themselves and watching over their shoulder and see, constantly giving these little nudges of yeah, you can do it like this, you could do it like that. We also have Quito coffee demo space, where we which we use in sales, presentation and stuff. So that's like the early beginning. For people who have never heard of Podio, before we show them, like the basics and a couple of apps and a couple of really simple flows. But it gets the message across of what the Podio is capable of. Well, in a sense, at least we do. When we deliver the first projects we do on on premise training. So we go there, wherever they're situated. And we give like an hour or two, training to each each user, whether they're the master user, or just like the simple user, we try to get everybody together in the room. And yeah, get them to know the basics of Podio. And one or two hours, something like that not too long, because they get like distracted when it takes too long. But it's a bit like Jenny said it's being there when when they need you just giving this little notice all the time to get them to work better.
Bavo De Cooman:Yeah, and like for example, if you fix something for them, not just say I fixed it, but also this was this is how it worked. And this is how we fixed it. So this, so giving them a bit of understanding into how it actually works. And also in the demo trying to focus on Well, first of all, understanding how the zones of Podio how it works in terms of user interface, so they find their way and then the most important demoing the most important aspects like for example, the power of relationship fields and the power of views. We stress that a lot as to how how how you can organise yourself because forget if they don't if you don't they start task over bombing. So they're going to do everything They're going to make tasks for just everything and not have not used the organisation, the organisation potential of views and every app and tiles on the workspace, etc.
Jordan Fleming:Absolutely. How, how long do you think it takes a new user? What do you think the curve is for a new user? To get? What I would classify as comfortable within the Podio? You UI? I put it three months,
Damien:at least. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Ordesky:I think I think actually three months to get the conflict basic, the basic Aha, that they understand that this is different. I think users sometimes hit the second plateau, where they're like, Oh, this isn't just good. There's something uniquely special here that you can't get anywhere else. And, and that that also comes that can take 12 months, or someone to really realise that it's, it's, there's, you know, I have a client that I have a permission to demo as long as it's no one's in their area, and they do you go into their platform and everything. I like to joke I'm like, we could literally buy this company today. All those people could go away. We don't need them. Because everything's that mentioned, there's no there's nothing about their business that isn't discussed contextually. Right, so it's, it's on the prospect, it's on the lead, it's on the the property or the whiteboard, where it's like, okay, couldn't get in because of the keys escrow pushed because of this talking to so and so everything's there, that is so well documented. And so well contextually done that that it is it, you don't the people are doing it, but it's anyone can step in. And that's where Podio makes a real difference when you get the work out of people's emails, when they're not doing this work in their emails, when they're not doing this work, you know, on slips of paper when everything is there, so that the context and the information flow is all in one place. well documented the communications of the clients, the SMS is the emails, the voicemails, everything's there, then, you know, that is where someone goes, Oh, my God, this is just so different. There's no system that brings us all together in one place this way. But it takes them a while to get there, they got to get comfortable, you can't just slam them into it.
Jordan Fleming:I agree.
Bavo De Cooman:You have to have your old friends, you're so used to using this app and that app and that app. And in the beginning, you think you can combine that with Polio. But actually, you should slowly kill all these darlings, and do it all in Podio. That's a that's become a bit of a journey. In the beginning, I had difficulties of letting go of a few apps I had been using for 10 years, where I had all my notes together, etc. And, and, and while working for Mike was a good a good reason to to start ditching all that. Because he beats you know, yeah, takes.
Mike Demunter:That's actually one of the things we do a lot when presenting to potential new customers is that we say Yeah, but what kind of apps do you use, and there they go office 365, Gmail, we have a good Dropbox, and they go on and on. And we say, Okay, if you want to go if you want to believe in us and believe in Podio, we're going to ditch 75% of those tools. But it will take some time we do it one at a time. We do it at a pace that's comfortable for you. But the ultimate goal can be if you're up to it because not everybody is up to it, obviously but if they're up to it, and they want to work differently than what most people are doing, but in a sense, I try to explain them that they will work just better everything is going to be in context everything is just going to be exist one time and one time only and play in place and time. If they if they get the message then yeah, we're alone right which which, which should be beneficial for the both of us.
Jordan Fleming:Ditching getting people to ditch email. Outlook is one of my favourite things in the world. We had a company we have a company that we've worked with for about a year and a half or so two years now I don't know how long but that we finally we've just got I think we've we finished a bit ago getting their final employee into our I'm email kind of methodology that I'm sure you guys have seen how we do email in Podio. And there's about 5055 to 70 employees. So getting all of them out of Outlook, and using Podio only for emails, probably took seven months, as take him in chunks, you know, get the top team to buy in, understand why it's awesome. work out the kinks, and then take five or 10 at a time. But but it is, it is a almost indescribable change, when you have all of that email flow coming through Podio one, because it's all can then be related to the parts of your system, where the emails are relevant to so you get that transparency as opposed to people just dragging shit into folders, and going oh, shit, where's that folder of whatever. But also, because it was the final killer, for the dreaded, I'm going to see see my team on this email for no other reason than because I seem to see see people on emails. And like, you know, and that was happening. And when you think about 50 to 7060 75 people, how many emails were happening every day, where they were see you seeing this team and see seeing this person for no reason. Nobody wanted it except for the fact that they felt very good. And it was a real and that that ditching you said, ditching tools, that bringing that element in? Is, is just it's probably the biggest productivity enhancement I ever seen companies. But it's also the hardest to get to because people are wedded to Outlook like it's their fucking daughter, or son. For reasons passing understanding.
Joel Ordesky:No, I think that notification that desire for over notification, whether it's email or something else, you still have to when they get into Podio I'm constantly on people going look, you don't need to follow every item, you know, when you get an owner who wants to be so you have like, you know who's responsible for this record. And they're putting, they're putting, you know, Jane who's responsible for it and owner underneath gene every time. And unlike owner, you don't need to be on every one of these records. You can look and read them. If you want to read them. You can search through what's active, what's not active, what's delayed, what's not. You can look all that up, you can see it your bloating, your notifications, because every change, and then they complain to me that they can't get anything done because they've bloated, they're noisy Asians, right. It's too noisy. Go back to your earlier comment about noise. So I think note being very intentional about notifications and who's on a record and who's following a record and training. I mean, the first training item from the bar none is how to control notifications. How do you unfollow an item? How do you follow an item? When do you get put back on an item because you touched it or someone mentioned to you and what tools are out there? And what methods are out there to unfollow items, because literally and I've had sales managers is like, Well, why would I ever want to unfollow this? I'm like, You're not doing the transaction, Jane's doing the transaction. If Jane needs you, she'll add mention you, you'll be back on the item. But don't follow the item. You follow it by looking at what's done, what's not done. And that way, that's a big change for people, you know, when it's an open. And I think that's where you get that concept. We talked in the beginning about, you know, people are uncomfortable with the open book nature of Podio. So we have to make seperated workspaces. But the beauty is by open book, you can see what you need to see. When you need to see it any team member can find the record they need to see that's contextually right, they don't need to be over notified because that just distracts them and slows them down. Whether that's notification. The task bloat that we talked task bombing, that's another horrible thing. It's not Podio specific, but people use automation to task bomb notify bomb, over notify over tasks. These are all bad management habits that that Podio eliminates the need for these things. So don't do them. Absolutely.
Mike Demunter:Yeah 100% Good. My one of the Kill Your Darlings issues I'd like to bring up and very early on is like try to be document less company don't create documents anymore. And obviously we think about Office 365 documents because everybody whips up Word and Excel documents. If they just think about two seconds I'm going to do something. Yeah, let's create an Excel sheet for it. But I'm going to say, imagine a world where we don't need documents. And they mostly stare at me blank, like, what exactly in the name of God do you mean? But I say with Podio, it's possible to work without documents, and then I get to explain it and some get it, some don't. But imagine the power of it and just give the clear example, you send an email to people in CC with a document, you get it back data document, and you're already lost. So when literally five seconds, I gave an example that everybody gets, yeah, it becomes a mess. And then you have folder, but you want to put it in the folder clients, but also in the folder projects, and you don't know which folder to choose, you're done. And literally 30 seconds, I showed them, I told them, why Podio can be a better system than the way you're working now. But obviously, some people are along for the ride and some are not. And that is fine.
Jordan Fleming:Okay, hands up who is using Podio for real estate, and they don't want more Leads. Nobody. You want more Leads closed? Well check out smartphone for Podio, the only phone system fully built for Citrix Podio. With an fully integrated power dialer and our amazing mobile apps, it means wherever you are, you can make more calls, love to Podio send more texts love to Podio and close more deals all log to your Podio CRM, click the link, check it out. Absolutely. I'd be curious. And Damian, I'm gonna I'm gonna bring you on this this question. First, if I may, because I know with your you know, you've obviously got an amazing deal processed, and that you you roll out to people and you. And I think when you develop what and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, because I've done it as well. But when you develop an off the shelf, right, a, a, when you develop a system that is designed to be replicated, many, many times, you have to think very deeply about the level of automation you put into a system. And the you know, because because it's being rolled out, you think even more deeply than people who are just building a system. And actually, I think people who are building a system, but if you're relatively new to Podio, you should be thinking about the level of automation immediately, and scaling that shit down as quickly as humanly possible. I, my view is always start with very little, and build up as you see as you need as you need do. Because the mistake I made when I first started and the mistake I make I see everybody make when they first start, is I've just been handed the keys to the Porsche. But I don't know how to drive, but I'm going to try and go 150 And automations, or a car crash waiting to happen. Talk about your death by tax death by fucking automation, where I'm just gonna make every little bit automated, because I think that oh shit, this doesn't work. Oh, God, and you ended up wasting time? What do you think about that Damien? And then everybody else?
Damien:I agree with that. 100%. And so actually, that led to us pulling our product off the shelf, right? So we actually took it back. And we're relaunching it very soon. Because it was, it was very, it was very automated. And it still is, but some of the automations were, you know, to a developer mindset, you're like, Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. But in a user aspect, right, the everyday Joe Schmo or the, you know, the VA in the Philippines, right? They don't understand the things that you've incorporated. Right? And so they're just gonna keep clicking buttons and, and doing drop downs. And right, it just breaks, right. And then you get a bunch of support tickets, and you know, like, Oh, all right. So this is obviously really confusing for people, we need a smooth system where they can, they can follow the Life caught the life of the lead, right? So from, from intake all the way to close, they should have a clear understanding of how to get from A to B to C to D, right? Without it being like, Oh my God, what do we do next? What's going to happen if I press this button? Oh, my God, I don't know. Like, everything needs to, like you said scale down. You don't need extensive automations to accomplish what most people need to accomplish in Podio. You know, like some of the email stuff Yeah, you got to do some, some backend work there, right to make it all linked correctly. But, but at the end of the day, Jordan, like what you're saying is, is exactly Rayleigh, though, less is more when it comes to automation most of the time,
Jordan Fleming:if you notice them, you're wrong. In my view, exactly. I take the view that if you if you're noticing the automations if you're actually noticing them, then chances are you fuck something up, because it should be almost Just like, smash, it shouldn't be even a question. It should just be, they should help you along the way. You should never have to fight against the system. Mike. Baba, what do you what do you guys think about that? And then I'll bring in Georgia.
Mike Demunter:Yeah. I also have a little bit of a blank here. Yeah, definitely open automation is bad. I have to admit, I'm really into automating stuff, you know, PVA or globey flow, as he used to call it, it's, it's an endless box of possibilities. So I have been seduced by that. Definitely. I admit that. But yeah, it's definitely in the not too much, not too less mode that you have to get from where it's really like beneficial, where it's going to save time for the end user, and where is it not going to annoy him and get that kind of balance, right.
Damien:Also, though, like, sometimes with the automations, what you end up doing is you don't like while some of them are needed in in or beneficial. Sometimes your writing flows, like, long after the fact that you've already written those original, you know, that original core set. And now things are kind of overlapping each other, or you've got things happening that, you know, you're not really following a plan or a guiding just kind of like making stuff as you go. And that's one of the biggest mistakes I've seen with projects that I've taken over. It's just like, man who was in here, because we just got, there's just like, it's like, somebody spat out an idea, and the guy just went in those. Alright, cool. Here's the flow, like, Alright, so now we've got, you know, a situation where you get like, 150 workflows in one app, like, Oh, my God, what is what's happening? Like, what if it'd be like maybe 20 flows in here? So that's one of the big things I think, when you speak over automation. It's usually in a situation like that, where the client is like, I want this. And the developers okay, I can make I can just go and add a flow. Right? And yeah,
Jordan Fleming:this sort of weird fucking thing. Yeah, is teetering. And you can't pull one bit, because
Damien:it's Jenga. Yeah.
Jordan Fleming:That's, that's, that's a really good point. Joel, Jenny, what do you what do you do any extra thoughts on that?
Jenny Sherwood:Well, lately, I've had a kind of a cadre of clients who are very, very, very pro automation. And to the extent that they want automation to do basically all of their thinking for them. So I'm always trying to, to, to toe the line between like, like others were stating, between smart automation, where it's, it's, you know, the process and the automations are working for you, and you're not working for them. That's always the challenging part. For me,
Joel Ordesky:I think that that goes to one of the things Jenny hears me say a lot is, is I want to see the system. I want to see the system work for you, not you work for the system. Now, that doesn't mean over automate it. I think, again, I go back to the business side of it and go, Okay, where's your real pain point? Where are the things that are actually will the automation gives you return on investment? In terms of time? effort? If you start thinking about it and going, okay, we can do this? Absolutely. Is it going to actually make it? Is it just cool? Or is it going to make a difference? So that some employee doesn't need to do this over and over and over again, and flashing back to something someone said earlier about, like, you know, doing analytics, doing reports, Mike was saying, Not no paper, right? You know, if I get people like, oh, let's create an automation so that every Friday an email goes out that has all of this, this this information, I'm like, I'm like, yeah, we can do that. But what we could do better is make a dashboard that just has the information that is accurate of the second, and they're like, wait, but we'll be right for the month and I'm like, Well, you can have it say shouldn't be last month, but we can also have it say where are we right now and the concept of I think this is a big again, a potent a big difference for Podio is that you're living in the data. So the ability to have your gauges actually be live and correct so that you're you're not looking backwards. This isn't that report like Mike said that stale. The moment you got it right 30 seconds after it came out something changed the reports no longer valid or you got To wait until the month is over to look backwards. So now you're looking backwards isn't looking forward, you know, you can do something that makes it live. So, again, it's my mind is, is it worth doing the automation? What's the return on investment often like, sales guys are spending a lot of time writing those sales reports. Great, that's fantastic. If I can free up four hours out of sales guys month by making so he doesn't have to do the report great. But the answer may not be that I'm going to email the manager the monthly report for you every month, I'm going to make a dashboard where it's just current and accurate of the moment. And that's probably a better finesse than just throwing the automation to hammer at the nail.
Jordan Fleming:Yeah. And I think I was asked by someone who, just about a month ago, I was asked by someone who just discovered Podio had heard the podcast and DM me and asked for some advice on building their first Podio system. And I said look like if you're gonna, I said, if you're gonna really think about how your business runs, and put it into Podio, you got to start naked. And build your closest up, because nobody puts their, their jacket and tie on before their you know, like, you got to start with the pants, the underwear, you got to put the trousers on and you got to you got to see what works and how it all works together, stop, build, build from the ground up, build a naked system, and then add the little bits that become necessary. Don't run all the way to the endpoint, work build naked, add a little see if it if it's helping or hurting, build and approach it as on a step by step intuitive way, as opposed to having this grand plan of like a massive, you know, Taj Mahal ask fucking edifice you're gonna build. And you don't even know how to lay concrete? Like, you know, let's take it with steps here. And I think steps is my advice to newbies. David,
Damien:I think that's that's perfect. You know, but the best clients I've had are the ones that come with a business plan. Like they're not, like in I mean that only that happened for me. But I don't mean like they've got this whole thing outlined. And it's great, but they have a general sense of what they're doing. And they're not looking for you to build their business plan for them, which is, I think, a mistake a lot of people that jump into Podio. And they go download that app from the App Market. Oh, now I've got this app. Now I've got the project management app system, right. And so now I, my company is going to be amazing. And I can do project management like that. No, not really. So in the way that try to design stuff for people that don't have a clear path is like you're saying small steps. But in the real estate world, the term is scalable, right? So you want to make it to where you're not boxing yourself into any sort of, you know, a corner based on what you're developing for them at the current time, because in six months, they might not have a team of 10 or they were just a team of two and now if you built this like okay, everything's gonna work great if you only have two people doing everything, but if you had three people, oh my god, this system breaks right? It should be easily metamorphosized into something different without overcomplicating it or doing all kinds of crazy automations it should be like the system Joe was talking about where anybody they could kick out the entire company and just bring in another company and they could just take right over and fully understand what's happening in the space
Jordan Fleming:are using Podio with call rail there's a better way click the link find out why hundreds of businesses have moved over to using smartphone the only phone system built for Podio make more calls send more texts and close more deals. Click Link Absolutely. I guess to close out the podcast I have one last topic and I realised that I'm spot you know I'm being a pain in the ass making all the questions here but nobody's put their fucking hand up with any so I'm gonna keep going. But when you know we talked earlier and I forget who it was maybe it was you bubble I can't remember about you know, getting people out of other systems and all roads Andrew Andrew Kratz and CEO games he's used to say when he first started with Podio and really got into it he had a almost like a post that he put on his desk. All roads lead to Podio. Right. And that's true, but I think you have to let horses for courses prevail here. Because I you know, there are times when you can jerry rig some shit in Podio But actually, it's going to work much better. If you let that other system do the shit it's supposed to do, and, and get the data that you need in and push the data out. Because and that is something like you. So when you think about your business process, and you think about Podio is a simple one for me are things like using a tool like Calendly, you can build a Calendly system in Podio. It just sucks. And it's hard and it's not good. And just fucking use Calendly and book, push the shift into Podio it your life will be easier. So that's that, you know, I think there are, there are times when you need to make sure that was your when you approach thinking about your entire business, pick those pick the things that can be brought into Podio make your paperless office concept, getting out getting outside of Outlook or, or getting out of the habit of, of sending files, you know, everything's got to be a file that we send I agree on a percent, getting out of the, you know, I've got an Asana for projects, and this for this and this, bringing that in, I agree. But also know that there are times when it is better for you to use the Hub and Spoke approach, where Podio is the hub? And sometimes you got some spokes. What do you guys I mean, I presume everybody's gonna agree with me.
Mike Demunter:Yeah, definitely. Yeah, just just like last week, we set up something synchronisation between Google Contacts and Podio. And we did it with Integra mats. And I kept it off for years actually, to use, because I said, Yeah, but you can do that as well in connections with other softwares, or cloud platforms and everything. But we never got to have a really neat system to sync Contacts and Calendars. And then we got integral method to the mix, finally, and we set it up in two hours or so. And it just works. So sometimes you have to admit that, although Podio is really, really, really capable of a lot, it just cannot handle 100% of the things. And that's true for everything for humans as well. Nobody's perfect. And yeah, you can look left or right, if if we find a tool that's just going to do the little thing you're looking for, but does it in a perfect way. Go ahead and do that
Jordan Fleming:nobody nobody's building in Podio.
Damien:Right, yeah,
Joel Ordesky:are things should not be done, you know, certain things should not be done in Excel, and certain things should not be done in Podio. and QuickBooks certainly is one of them, that you do get, you do occasionally get those borderline cases I've, I've done a little of both. I've done time tracking in Podio. Using a variety of methods, and I've done it I've also turned to a client when their needs exceed what we're not just simply saying you worked for a few minutes on this, you worked for a few minutes on that. They want actual time punches and other certain things on like, Okay, now it's time to go look at a Hubstaff a, you know, there's a whole bunch of great time tracking tools that you're never going to do you know, this is the old photographers thing of saying that, you know, you can have a 50 millimetre lens or an 85 millimetre lens, that's perfect. When you can have an 85 to 200 millimetre zoom that will cover the whole range. But the pure lens is always better than the zoom. In all cases, the Zoom is just easier and more convenient to use. So the same thing is true here. There's times I mean, Jenny and I are probably the most knowledgeable people about equipment rental inventory systems that exist. And you know, we both at this point would probably flatly agree that you shouldn't do inventory tracking through on that scale through Podio. Yeah,
Jordan Fleming:yeah. Okay. Anybody else? Else on that before I close the show any final thoughts from anybody? Anybody want to round out with some final thoughts for related to the things we've discussed tonight or today? Give anybody final thoughts come on, speak now or forever never be invited back.
Joel Ordesky:I think get get feet wet first. Don't don't become married into you know, crawl Walk Run but but certainly at the at the very beginning, if you're new to Podio you know, create a little something don't get married to it. Don't make it your real workflow. instal a couple of templates, each template in a separate workspace if you're gonna get things off the App Store and learn them as they were intended. Then, once you're done, take all that knowledge and decide whether you're going to use a template as is or you're going to build something And, you know, from from scratch, you know, sometimes Jordan crawl, walk run is the right way to go. Sometimes I've said to people who didn't have a lot of money, and found a template that totally didn't fit them. And I'm like, Okay, we're gonna make you two, three apps for very little money. And you're just going to do the absolute basic here. And once you've made some money, you come back to me, and we'll layer on some more stuff. And we'll crawl walk, run until you have a totally customised system that works for you, rather than this template that you can either get for free, or you can buy for 15 or $2. That that is the wrong dress or the wrong suit for you. So but you can't, there's no instantaneous start to Podio. And if you try to take that approach that it'll take you down the wrong road.
Jordan Fleming:Absolutely. Mike, any closing thoughts?
Mike Demunter:Yeah, try to share the audio Lof, we have ourselves to the customers. Try try to make them feel the same way with audio as you do yourself. And they will stick around for years and always have new ideas to do and stuff to do make better etc.
Jordan Fleming:Awesome. And finally, for Damien for your company. Any final thoughts?
Damien:No, I just agree with everybody, you know, slow, slow, is smooth and smooth is fast. So that's the best way to put it.
Jordan Fleming:I like that. I would also just add, if you're listening, you know, if you are relatively new to Podio, get yourself in the PWA workspace. There is nothing I have yet to find a software community as engaged with its users as users to each other as as in side of the PWA, proc foo, etc workspaces. Because you can get almost every question you've ever wanted answered, you have a glut of resources of club questions from the past that have been answered. So I can look at that first before you just answer the question. Use the search box search, please. But also you've got these amazing partners you see here and others who are constantly providing tips, tricks, feedback on people's questions, etc. It is the most supportive community I think you'll find both at the PWA and proc foo level. You know, Globe e mails got its own, although not as active smartphones got its own workspace where you know, Joel, you know, answers a lot of questions, although we are moving to Facebook right now. Because we're moving into Salesforce as well. So we can't just have everybody in Podio. Like, hi, let's just do the thing. So do use those resources, because they are phenomenal. And I think we've all learned from them. We've all contributed to them. And you won't find a better way of learning the system than then going in there, I think. Absolutely. So listen, thank you to everybody here. You know, Joel, Jenny, Mike Bible. Damian, I really appreciate you guys sharing your insight, I'm going to put everybody's links to their websites into the podcast description. And on the podcast page, if you are looking for partners, if you need help with Podio if you're new, and you need someone to guide you, and to help you build, please reach out to any of the parties here including Game Changers as well put them as well. And, you know, they're all fantastic partners who do a fantastic job for people and, and work with a lot of different use cases. So they'll bring a huge amount of experience to your Podio build and to your business. And that experience itself is valuable. So thank you guys for joining me do like share, fucking comment back and like do all those things you're supposed to do when you listen to a podcast and do that shit on every platform. You listen to Spotify, flux Spotify and Joe Rogan.
Narrator:You've been listening to another awesome episode of supercharged with Jordan Samuel Fleming don't forget to hit the subscribe button on our YouTube channel to be notified of new podcast episodes Podio master classes and in depth Podio extension reviews if you've enjoyed this podcast please give us a review on your podcast player to help support the show