Helllllllooooooo text messaging! If you're one of the thousands of businesses who use Podio for your CRM and you send text messages to your contacts - you need to watch/listen to this episode!
We're joined by Ellen Sluder, Head of Marketing at smrtPhone who dives into two really interesting conversations. First up is the simple fact that text message rules are changing across all US carriers, and if you use text messaging as part of your Podio system....you need to know what that means and how you can very easily keep compliant!
Second, we talk to Ellen about her journey with Podio itself and how she has grown to love the platform and see its power!
Either way this is a powerhouse episode (and a welcome return from the summer break).
Show Links:
Sign up for a free trial of smrtPhone at: http://bit.ly/gamechangers-smrtPhone
Have you checked out our Podio Masterclass? Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to get notified of new videos.
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
Helllllllooooooo text messaging! If you're one of the thousands of businesses who use Podio for your CRM and you send text messages to your contacts - you need to watch/listen to this episode!
We're joined by Ellen Sluder, Head of Marketing at smrtPhone who dives into two really interesting conversations. First up is the simple fact that text message rules are changing across all US carriers, and if you use text messaging as part of your Podio system....you need to know what that means and how you can very easily keep compliant!
Second, we talk to Ellen about her journey with Podio itself and how she has grown to love the platform and see its power!
Either way this is a powerhouse episode (and a welcome return from the summer break).
Show Links:
Sign up for a free trial of smrtPhone at: http://bit.ly/gamechangers-smrtPhone
Have you checked out our Podio Masterclass? Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to get notified of new videos.
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 the 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 smartphone 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. All right, it is summer. I gotta admit, I've taken a month or so off, been doing some things with the family. But podcasting is coming back. And that means a bunch of great new guests. And this week, is kind of a fun one and kind of a different one. And because I am welcoming Elen Sluder, who is the head of marketing for my company smrtPhone. And the reason I'm doing this very special episode of supercharged is because I know a lot of my listeners to this podcast, and a lot of people who use Podio, use text messaging communication, hopefully with smrtPhone. But either way, if you use text messaging, and you are using a system like smrtphone or any other to do it, this episode is an important one for you to listen to. Because there are huge changes happening in the whole ecosystem of text messaging in the United States. And the first half of this podcast, Ellen, I talk a little about that. It's called A2P10DLC, application to programme 10 digit long code, the second half of this episode, and I talked Podio, she's been introduced to Podio because she joined smrtphone and I got her into the ecosystem. And we talked a bit about the things she's grown to love and some of the things that maybe made it a little difficult to get off the ground for and it's kind of fun, and I always love talking to people who I've introduced to Podio. And to see that journey of awakening of how amazing polio can be. So hope you like this episode, it's back to kind of normal service, we're going to be doing some new masterclasses. We're going to be new podcasts. Do make sure you check out our YouTube channel, subscribe, go to your podcast platform, give it a like, give it a share. You know, those ratings really do help spread the gospel of Podio. Now on to the podcast, let's go Susan's a terrible way second. So for the benefit of everyone who kind of we actually recording in this room? I'm so sorry, really record here anymore? That it's sort of like, I don't like it as much anymore. But for the better good of anyone who is doesn't know you? Why don't you take 30 seconds to introduce yourself to the podcast? Yes.
Ellen Sluder:Okay. Hi, I'm Ellen Sluder. I am the Head of Marketing for smrtphone. And I have been, that was my introduction to Podio was joining the smrtphone team in early 2021. So somewhat still a newbie to Podio. But I am certainly starting to love it. I love it. Oh my God, not only do I love it, but I have. I think I've told you that my sister is writing a book about an artist like she's an art history person. And she's writing a book about an artist and she wanted my help to catalogue this person's works. And I was like, You need a Podio database because she needed to match up and I built her I put them in a database. So hazing amazing. But yes, I love Podio. And we use it for all of our content, calendar documentation, management documentation library, keeping up with the roadmap and making sure that we have all of the right feature announcements going out. And like I said, blog posts, all that kind of stuff. So absolutely love Podio. But I think I'm a little
Jordan Fleming:begin with. I didn't I actually we're gonna split this podcast into two because I got you now in the hot seat on this. I forgotten when I when I asked you to do this. Specifically, I want to talk to you today. Because I know that so many of our certainly smrtphone customers from Podio smrtphone customers, but just in general, a lot of people use Podio in the real estate industry or in solar industries or in some sales industry where they're doing a lot of communication, whether they're using smrtphone which of course, they should be quick links by try it out if you haven't already. Or they're using something else to be fair. Either way, there's a huge change happening in the US in terms of text messaging. It's been happening for over a year now, but it's coming to the you know, sharp end of the stick. And I felt like it was time that certainly given that we've got an audience here from this podcast for Podio. I thought it was time for us to just like I want to raise the warning flag again, I've been raising it, you and I've been raising it from a smartphone perspective for ever. But like, let's do it from a bowtie Oh, fuck it, let's do it from Podio perspective as well as up 10 DLC. Today, we're going to talk a bit about this, first of all, dive into what it is why it's important. If you do use text messaging, you're listening to this podcast, and you use text messaging with Podio. You gotta listen to this, and you've got to act on it. So can you succinctly kind of sum up what HTTP 10 DLC is?
Ellen Sluder:Okay, well, let's just start with what the acronym stands for. It stands for Application to person 10 digit long code. So the application to person part literally means you are using some kind of software technology to send the text message rather than your own personal phone. And the 10 DLC stands for 10 digit long code, which is a US local phone number. So it's not a toll free number. It's not a shortcode. It is, and there's a lot of benefits to texting with local phone numbers, which is why most people do it, especially in the real estate industry, where location being local matters. Your area code matters if you get a text message from somebody. I mean, I live in New York, but I have an Oregon, technically an Oregon area code because that's where I lived when I got my phone number 20 years. Everyone around here is like, Oh, 503 What's that? I feel like I'm like I grew up here.
Jordan Fleming:It used to cost a lot more money to call. Like when I was a kid, I remember like local call versus long distance.
Ellen Sluder:And there was like a short, medium distance. And you used to be able to just
Jordan Fleming:I don't know if you can still do it. But I remember you used to be I remember my New Canaan, because I grew up I went to high school. I funny enough, I went to high school with Alan on this podcast. But I lived in Connecticut. And I remember our number was 9668195. God, please don't call back because I don't know what the fuck is that now, but the I may believe that shit out actually. In fact, I gotta leave that one out. But anyway, I do. Remember, I could call some people with just the seven digits. And other people I had to like if I want to call New York, I had to go 914 Blah, blah, blah. And I think
Ellen Sluder:I can talk to you about the North American Numbering Plan. I know way too much about that. And it used to be that the first the first three parts, which is your region, it used to be actually letters. So like, nearby here is a town called Armand. So it was a R three. And that's how you did so I know a lot about numbering and stuff, but and then they had to expand to they had to expand to area codes. And then we have exhausted area codes. So now most there's a lot of overlays in different areas, like Manhattan has something like seven different area codes or the whole Manhattan but all of the New York City boroughs has seven or eight different area codes, they keep adding them. But anyway, the idea is, is if you are reaching out to someone who doesn't know you, especially via text, they're more likely to pay attention if they let you seem familiar, right. And if you have one way you can seem familiar is by having the same area code. So that's my 10 digit long code makes a big difference with short codes, you share it with somebody, they have to remember two things, both the six digit code and whatever your keyword is short codes
Jordan Fleming:is like text, hello, 26449 to hear that on radio all the time, as opposed to just like, hey, my number is 203 Blah, blah, blah, and I'm texting you on your number for my number and, and it looks like just a normal number. That's a default.
Ellen Sluder:And we're short codes. It's like it's difficult to text. But it's not really two way communication. It's difficult to text back. And then when you have a toll free texting while that's totally possible, you seem a little corporate, right? You seem big, you seem like you you're kind of floating out in the ether a morphus. You don't really connect with that person in the same way. It looks like you
Jordan Fleming:know, my back.
Ellen Sluder:And then there's other types of texting the businesses use Ott, is called over the top. It's like WhatsApp or Facebook, it's where you both have to have the same app to use it. So 10 digit long code, you don't both have it? Yes, it's application to person. But you don't both have to have the same app to be able to use it. So it's text messaging. Yeah, it's just such a valuable tool for for businesses to use. But the receiving carriers here in the US are have become very sensitive to the fact that your personal mobile text message inbox, whether you use iPhone and you have iMessage, just your regular text messaging inbox, it's become a target for scammers and spammers, and so as part of them trying to protect their consumers. And it's been it's been encouraged heavily by the FCC for them to do this so that they don't, you know, regulation takes time. So this is kind of a stopgap regulation is probably coming, but it's going to take some time. So the carriers themselves the receiving carriers, primarily driven by T Mobile, who now also own sprint, AT and T. And then Verizon is a little bit quieter, but they're in the background. So that means there's only one other carrier, which is US Cellular and like who uses. I mean, I don't want to be mean to
Jordan Fleming:them, but their hashtag, don't fucking sue me because Elon just flagged you.
Ellen Sluder:Allegedly, it's not as popular. And then you hear about all these other carriers like cricket or mint or whatever. But those are mDNS, I'm sorry, too many acronyms. But those are, those are folks who actually operate on the networks of the larger people. They just work out a bull market, and then they and then they pass the discount, right. So it really is in the United States. All Text messaging, it's going through the network of Verizon AT and T, T Mobile or US Cellular. So those first three, the biggest ones have decided that they're going to put protections in place. So they can sense through technology, this is my very technical way of saying they can use technology, we can use it, but they can tell if the text message has come from another mobile phone. Or if it's come like like, if it's 18, t to 18 T or 18, T to T Mobile, they can tell if it comes from any kind of application, any kind of soft phone, Google Voice, smartphone RingCentral, any of those Voice over IP actually
Jordan Fleming:doesn't matter, actually,
Ellen Sluder:oh, that they can tell that it's an application, they can sense that it's an or they have ways to analyse that that the A has come into play, it's not P to P, it's not person to person, it's application to person, and they are throttling it, they are throttling that down now, and they are requiring folks that use that method of texting to register and identify themselves so that they can cut down on spammers and scammers. So now we need to get all of us who are application providers need to get people who were using the system to register. And it shouldn't be so scary, because it's like, I'm a legitimate business, and I'm communicating with my customers. That's really all it is. But because it's an extra effort, extra step. People
Jordan Fleming:who aren't doing it, that's the problem, what why we're doing this podcast, if I'm gonna be blunt, everybody listening here, if you are listening to this, and you use text messaging and use it with Podio, then, you know, this is happening HCPs here, it's happening, it affects everybody. And there are very small, easy steps you have to take to make sure you can continue texting and get the results you want. Right. And that's all there is to it. And if you keep ignoring it, which is what most of our customers are doing, and we do not most, which not so not fair, not most, which many people are doing, a lot of our customers are doing the process. And that's great. But this isn't one of those things you can just ignore, and assume everything's gonna be fine, because sooner or later, and the carriers have let us know that they think it'll be this year, they're essentially going to say, Hey, you're trying to send a text messages from a system. But you're not registered for a GB 10 DLC, and therefore I'm not sending it. Well, I'm not accepting it. I'm denying that. So if you do, you know, if you're listening to this, and text messaging is part of your communication bit with Podio. Regardless of what system you're using, if you're using batch, your smartphone or anything else, RingCentral, listen to this, go to the provider you're using, hopefully, it's smartphone. And but if not your provider, and go through their simple process to register your company, all you do is you give the basics of who you are your EIN number, your website, the registered person, you fill in a form that will take you 30 seconds, and you submit it. And that's all you really have to do to then start the process. And when it comes time, once they've verified you, and you get you set up your texting profile. Again, the form you have to fill in, takes you literally to a minute to fill it like less than it's five questions or more like that's it. So this isn't a process. That's scary. It's not a process. That is difficult, but it's a process you have to do. And and there's really big benefits Elon, why, like for me, we've talked a lot about what do you think the benefits of this are? Aside from the fact that you have to fucking do it? Right. So
Ellen Sluder:I don't, let's get to the downside, like the what will happen if you don't do it second, but what happens if you do register? So the very first thing is they they're actually promising faster text message delivery, larger throughput, throughput and stuff. You know, for folks that mostly that use Podio. I'm not imagining they're doing a tonne of stuff that's like two factor authentication where you're sending a code, but when it's that kind of stuff, for a lot of providers that really matter. Someone's trying to log in, they have to get the code in their text message. You want that code to show up immediately, not 10 minutes To get our so there, it's faster, higher volumes that faster speeds, but also the per message cost of registered messages is going to be lower. Right. So the fees are going up for everybody these receiving carriers, any text that is sent, whether it's registered or unregistered, that's coming from the application is going to have now a surcharge on top of it. But that surcharge is about half if you're registered, and it's larger if you're unregistered. So those are the the benefits. And, you know, you, you there is a benefit that's a little more philosophical. It's the idea that you're buying into a system that is working hard to weed out scammers that, yeah, it's weeding it out, you're participating in pushing those bad folks out of the way so that your text messages actually will eventually get more attention. Now, there is this interim time where sort of everybody's kind of muddled together. But if you get on the right side of history here, you're going to be coming out ahead.
Jordan Fleming:Hey, are you using Podio to manage your real estate investment business Wait, 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.
Ellen Sluder:Now what happens if you don't register. So if you don't register, you're going to have those higher per message fees. And they are going to probably before they shut it off, I'm guessing this is my guess that they're going to have a period of time where they're going to start labelling those texts as scam likely, just like they do for some of the spam phone calls. So they're probably going to label them a scam, like Li which is hurt to your brand. But also an they owe the FCC, everybody is already scanned, randomly scanning text messages for violations of TCPA. And the communication guidelines that exist and opt in they're already scanning for that. What's a better way to for them to identify who to look at first and being like, well, this is a bunch of unregistered, they might still look at the registered folks, but they're going to look at unregistered first, it's going to be increased scrutiny more likely to be caught if you don't have actual opt in there. And then. And then of course, like what Jordan said, it's going to be actually completely filtered out, they will not deliver it. And they have said they're not going to tell you if it wasn't delivered. So you'll be like I texted you, what are you talking about, and then you're gonna look like an idiot because it didn't actually go through.
Jordan Fleming:It's just one of those. It's like, it's like I was about to say it's like getting your vaccine. And then I realised that there's a whole lot of people who may be listening to this and saying, fuck you, I don't want to get my vaccine, right. But but this is one of those things that it's you know, like filing your tax, your vegetable taxes, I don't particularly like paying the government my tax money, but it's just one of those costs of doing business. And, you know, if text messaging is a big part of your communication breakdown, then you know how important it is to be able to communicate effectively that that either way, you know, this is a an opportunity for you to prove who you are and to make sure you're on the good player side and make sure you're going through and operating the right way. But also just it's it's your way of making sure that you're gonna continue to be able to do texting, because, you know, as long as you're abiding by those rules, like TCPA, steel, DNC, opt in all those types of things, you most of us, most of the businesses I speak to from smartphone, they want to be good, like nobody, none of none of people I talked to, aside from maybe one or two, who we've clicked off our system, quite honestly, nobody that we talked to wants to try and be a scammer or a spammer, you know that they want to do business and they want to communicate. And so they're just you know, so they try and play by the rules as they can. This is one of those things that's really easy to do. The sooner you do it, the better. And I just, you know, it's really important that we do that. And it's important that you do that. So I'm gonna put a link in the podcast, to our Help documentation that's inside smartphone, where you can read all about it read how simple it fucking is. It's not like if you've got some sort of weird trauma from your SATs, this isn't it. It's really easy to do. And, and just regardless of what system you're using, if you're using text messaging, just fucking click the link, read it and do it. Alright. And
Ellen Sluder:can I make a marketing analogy for this? Right, so So years ago, and marketing, it used to be the thing where you would buy a list, and then you would just email the crap out of them, right? And you were like, Well, I only spent like two grand on this list. It has 10,000 contacts. So only two people responded but to people that I only you know, like my cost of sales is still where I want it to be or whatever it is. And you know, now there's all these systems that have the junk folder or the junk box. And you can see how that, like, there's non deliverability of those kinds of, and you'll be kicked off, like if you use MailChimp or whatever and you don't have an opt in if enough edits enough people complain about you, you are kicked
Jordan Fleming:off their mail chimp will shut that shit down great do not used to be the Wild West email marketing, that's a great analogy. When email marketing came out, it was the Wild West and anybody can do anything. And then everything all the gates came in not to stop legitimate things, but to stop bullshit. And essentially, business text messaging has been the wild west for the for a while now, mainly because and I learned this from bandwidths, which is another major player in the US. You know, business, the when when text message came out, they never really thought businesses would like they didn't really think of business texting, they didn't think about it, and then suddenly became a really big part of a sales kind of cycle. And now they're they're just like MailChimp, great example violin, just like when emailing email newsletters and you know, that kind of came out, we suddenly were like, ah, and we created those barriers to bad bullshit, this is what's happening now. So if you're a good person, you're a good company, you try and do good things, and you want to communicate by text, fucking click the link, read the documentation and spend the four minutes to sign up.
Ellen Sluder:Right and and it really is about the idea that the best marketing and communications plan is a diverse portfolio portfolio, don't put all your eggs in one basket, don't put all your eggs into cold texting, you know, you don't put all your eggs into cold emailing, you have to have, you have to reach out with a an appropriate marketing message that, you know, builds demand build interest, and then you use these communication tools to nurture and to bring somebody from an initial interest into conversion. And that's really the best way to be using text messaging. You know, I don't know if you if anybody listening does have a property that's been like that, that somehow real estate investors have gotten on some of the list, and you get those text messages over and over and over again, now my mother in law, get that because she has paid off the mortgage for her house, right. And that that makes her a target for real estate investors, she gets text messages all the time. And they all look exactly the same. And there is no differentiation, they're completely cold. And she just blocks, blocks, blocks, blocks, blocks, you know, whereas if somebody had approached her in a different way, she actually was kind of interested in selling here, don't reach out to me because I can't get get to her. But she actually is she actually is interested in something now. And if but she's not going to do it from some get to her. She's older, it's weird, she doesn't. But if somebody sent her a flyer in the mail that appealed to her looks friendly, whatever, she would reach out that way. So you have to have a full marketing portfolio that fits your target fits your business, and draws interest. So. So that's why it's good. This should not be anything that any legitimate player is afraid of. But should we talk about the plans, there are options once you do the initial registration,
Jordan Fleming:I don't I don't want to get too deep into this. Because the honest truth is you can read the doc like guys, the most important thing is go click the link, read the documentation and fucking do it. It's really not that complex,
Ellen Sluder:I just want to say to light things, you have two options, one is completely free. And then one costs a little bit. And it's a little bit of a higher level, more sophisticated plan. So you have these two options. So not only is it simple to sign up, but it also is free if you choose the standard. I mean, it's the basic option. So starter,
Jordan Fleming:the starter package, yeah, there, it's really not very complex. We're gonna have the link to the documentation. What I want to get across in this podcast right now before we're going to quickly switch over to our Podio discussion for five minutes. Because I'm curious about that. But you know, look, the I'm gonna say one last time, if using texting, and you're using a system like smartphone, RingCentral, batch, whatever call collarette. Whatever it is, if you're using a system and you want to be able to text message, click the link in the discussion in the podcast, read up on it and go to whatever provider you're using. If it's smartphone, login if you're the account owner and go you've got a trust centre that you can follow the directions on the help centre. It'll take you five minutes to register. Do it right now. Do it as soon as you get off this podcast. Because after that do the like and review and bullshit you're supposed to do on podcasts and fuckers do. But I want you to do. But no, just stop right now, in fact, but I was pause it and do it because I just want everyone I don't want you to lose the opportunity to tax for something so stupid for something so, so stupid. Now, you just may have heard of ding in your ear, which I don't know if you heard that which which sadly, is Elon knows with this coming now I'm gonna let Elon give a little insight into how she came into Podio and what she felt. And when she doing that you're gonna see me disappear and do 10 Push ups, which sounds really weird and a weird thing to do on a podcast but But I kind of have to do them. So LM taken away for
Ellen Sluder:well, maybe I'll give them the back end. So what Jordans doing is part of a development philosophy that we've put in place at smartphone, it's the Pomodoro Technique, if you want to google it, it's the idea of 25 minutes of very focused work. And then you take a break. And when you take a break, you do something physical to like, loosen you up and, and expand your mind so that you can be more efficient, efficient and effective. So the team, a lot of people are choosing to do push ups, some people are choosing to do squats, whatever it is. So that is where the thing is. So I didn't say anything about Podio is explaining your pushup. But um, okay, so Podio what, you know, when I first started, I've worked in a lot of different CRMs. Before, I've worked in HubSpot, I've worked in Salesforce, I've, you know, I used to work for a business process management tool that was more customised for the healthcare space. So I really understand workflow management and how that goes. And, you know, Podio was a little bit like, I was a little bit.
Jordan Fleming:I mean, I wasn't sold when you first looked at it, but
Ellen Sluder:it was it was both overwhelming and underwhelming at the exact same time. And, and it took a while. And I think the best thing that happened in my training was that Jordan didn't, like actually teach you all this, that sounds bad, but I'll explain it, he didn't teach me anything, he guided me to do all the things myself. So that is really where I really started to understand the power of Podio. And what you can do was by going in there and playing around with it, and doing it myself, and, and getting the muscle memory and being like, Oh, wait, I remember, go there. Now. I'm like, I'm using keyboard shortcuts, um, you know, creating apps modifying templates. You know, it's I'm like, I'm full in, unfolded on everything except for email, but I'm fully on everything else. Being managed 100%. Like I said, before, we do all of our content calendar, we do all of our documentation, library documentation updates, we keep track of our roadmap in it. And so for me, as the head of marketing, I need to know when new releases are coming, and what the end of the descriptions and what the timeline are, and the fact that everything's all interconnected. Everybody can have their own space to play with, but then the spaces talk to each other, the workspaces, it's amazing, it's the best
Jordan Fleming:way your your, you know, I watch over the 11 years, or something that I've I've done. I've been building in Podio I have seen hundreds of people learn Podio, right, I've trained probably hundreds of people, I've shown hundreds of people, but I've also just seen so many people and and everybody goes through a sort of sceptical, you know, because you were the little scepticism of the system, like, is this really gonna have this things I need it to be and, and I know I still haven't convinced you on the email front, and that's fine. Well, maybe I'm and you know, what, I've kind of lost the, I've lost the desire to just fucking, like slam people into it. But But I, you everyone starts out with a bit of scepticism, everyone who's dealt with other systems, who view Salesforce or Hobbs water, or whatever it is, everyone comes up but with a bit with, you know, a sceptical brain. And it's only over a period of time that you see them transform, usually into being it's sort of the light goes on. And then the light turns into an accelerator where they're just like, oh, i Holy shit. Now I want to do they're like, an AI that kind of curved from an O. And yeah, that kind of like, is, is when you went through as well. And I think and you've now kind of, you're going through that with some new people in your team, bringing them into Podio.
Ellen Sluder:And that's been my that's been my, I think that's probably when the turning point came when Georgiana came on board. And we started having a technical writer, so I wasn't reading all the documentation myself and being able to have a centralised place where we could work on it. Also, were on the timezone difference. So for there to be able to be this real seamless handoff. And then we've added now another, a Content Manager to the team to like, for team management. Like, that's really where it like, really my mind, and I really the collaboration is it's absolutely amazing. You know, and it's just like, we work in a distributed team, you know, like, even even our team that are all sort of near each other. A lot of people still work from home, and it's almost like this. It's almost like our office that we all go into together. You know, like, I'm always like posting gifts and emojis and you know, we have like a lot of chatter that goes on in there. On the different parts of the roadmap, again, are different places, and it does it become it becomes our virtual office in a way.
Jordan Fleming:Absolutely, absolutely. And I think, you know, it's, it's always fun, you know, it's always fun for me to see someone's journey into, you know, Podio. And into that kind of accelerated phase where it's like, oh, I can actually do something with this way, you know, now, as you say, you're, you're, you're building apps, or you're modifying apps, and you're, you're deciding how you want to track this one thing in Podio, etc. And I think that's really great. We're also obviously, you're going to be starting to bring more information into Podio from other parts of our systems. So that we have that one. That one hub of data because we still, even though Podio is there, we still use other systems, we have to for you know, we use, you know, a system called intercom for our, our support channel for people, we use other, you know, systems that all have data points. And if you've got that kind of distribution of data across so many systems, it's hard to see the whole board and Podio can really be that whole board.
Ellen Sluder:So So we're currently working with web consultants to help us with our website, making it more of a because even though it's kind of got an E commerce feel to it, but it's really set up like a brochure website. So we're trying to make it a little bit more fluid and has and he was when we were doing an unwitting, attendee kept saying, what's the source of truth? What's the keeper of truth? What do you and I was like, we go out and I was like, oh, yeah, like everything goes into Podio. That is our one place that we go into, that keeps all of our data clean, it keeps us, you know, on the same page, or on the same item?
Jordan Fleming:Absolutely, absolutely. This system of Podio is a brilliant system of record for that, if you are using multiple systems, and you can get via the API, you can get some data in, you end up being able to have this hub of all your data in one place, which you can then turn and spin on a dime. And that is, you know, it's so important is just is is wickedly important. Do you have anything that you know, do you have any kind of things on the horizon? Or things that you're quite excited about trying to do with Podio? Are you still opening to do email? Or are you just gonna just mix it for life? It's okay, you can be honest. Yeah,
Ellen Sluder:I mean, the one the one thing that I so we use the Gmail workspace for, I use it for email. The one thing that holds me back is that I do so much in for the content development. So much of it, we use the Google Docs and stuff to share it. And I'm, I'm not sure that Podio is the best place for that kind of like commenting, editing and that kind of stuff. So that might keep me in there. I think one of the things I'm really excited about is we've been I've been talking more with, with Alex in the past couple of months about developing more dashboards, more marketing dashboards to understand lead generation, and then into trial, and then child's conversion and conversion to upsell and then retention and churn and really having that mapped out so we can understand how much do we have to put into the top of the funnel to get the results you want the back end? And what activities happen at each and right now we are we're there's some opacity to specifically our lead portion because we have multiple different teams touching people. So the marketing team that's then our client success team touches them, and that data is currently not syncing up. So we're working on figuring out how do we get all those metrics and KPIs synched up? So we have a really clear understanding of how many touches does it take to get a lead to a trial? And then what does it take to get a trial to a conversion, and we can really understand that process. So I think dashboards is the area that I'm much more super excited about reporting, in general, where I'm excited to get deeper into.
Jordan Fleming:Well, I know that one of the things that I'm looking forward to doing, which is a relatively quick hit, and shout out to Podio partner, slash smartphone partner synchrony my old team from game changes, which is now an amazing company called synchrony. They're going to do the integration for me. But a little a little thing, that's just an example of how a little thing can make transparency and ability to to understand that much easier. We're going to of course, hook up our Calendly so that every calendar event gets plunked into our CRM and gets associated with the if they you know, with it with a lead or with a customer. And with with an agent that's having the meeting and you know, notes can go in there recordings in the meeting can go in there. A little bit of integration like that a simple API integration, like like a Calendly can suddenly mean that you've got oh wow, every single meeting that the customers have scheduled with our CSA team, is now bam. clumped into a CRM, boom, we've got we, you know, as opposed to us having to find out, we've got it all there we can, we can make sure it links up to our customer, we can see that and that's such a simple, small thing. But it gives you a map to help
Ellen Sluder:us and what's I mean, what's the point of the data, right? The point of the data is to make decisions, it's going to help us understand staffing needs for that CSA position. You know, if we're seeing that every person that every lead that tuck that actually does this Calendly demo with our CSA? Well, let's say they have like an 80% chance of becoming a client, well, I'm gonna want to push that more, which means we're going to need to staff up, you know, I'm gonna start pushing, you know, chats, I'm gonna start doing pop ups on the website, get a demo, get a live demo, it shows that that ends up, you know, converting better. And so we need that information. So having again, that that one source of truth that allows us to analyse how the business works, and the cost of doing business, it's gonna really help us just continue to grow at an at a very sustainable and profitable
Jordan Fleming:faith. Absolutely. Well, listen, Alan, thanks so much for coming on today. And you know, two things. Number one, of course, I always like to listen to, you know, people's journey through polio, yours is a specific one where you know, you're coming in at a senior position, and you're having to learn having used lots of other systems, you're having to learn it. So hearing a bit about that journey, and how you spirits and how you've kind of turned from sceptic to kind of evangelist, yeah, you're a convert. That's fantastic. And, of course, the you know, the, the ATP content that we did the begin beginning, a thank you for coming on and explaining it and be reminded, every listening that if you are using text messaging, and using a system, please remember to go right now and read up and do it. It's so simple, but you got to do it, because sooner or later, you're not going to text. So it's like, it's the easiest thing in the world. It's quick and easy. It won't take any time, it's not going to cost you any money unless you're going to do specific situations in it. And, you know, ultimately, you know, go do it. It's like paying your taxes, suck it up, do it and get on with it. So that's, that's the that's my
Ellen Sluder:message for today free, is that it could be free. It doesn't have to cost you money. Well,
Jordan Fleming:no, it's either way, it's gonna cost you money. It's like, let's be clear, it's gonna cost you money, because there are charges that are going up. But the charges go way up, if you don't register. So like this is this is just one of those things is like, come on, like, just go do it. You've listened. Now you've heard what it's all about. You've heard wide matters. Go do it. It'll be very quick. You can do and then you can forget about it. In a sense. Yeah. set it and forget it. Absolutely. Well, thank you very much, Alan. I will I will see you as of today. I will see you next week in Europe. Yes. Awesome. Can't wait. All right. Thank you guys for listening and have a great week.
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