00:00.00
Preston Lee
Hello there and welcome to a special q and a episode of freelance to founder. My name is Preston Lee with millo.co and joining me on the air as at all times is my friend Clay Moseley from getdripify.com hey clay having fun with the brand new offices. Yeah.
00:12.97
Clay
What’s up man. Yeah, now that I’m moved ah moving is moving is the more serious.
00:19.29
Preston Lee
Yeah, that’s no fun until that’s all finished but recent location austin Texas still but just found a recent office to work in you cool you posted? Yeah yeah, you’ve at all times loved that city so long as you’ve been there.
00:28.74
Clay
Yeah, we’re downtown downtown Austin now which is which is cool. Love the energy love the energy here yeah it’s yeah cool, weird vibe. Ah.
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00:37.21
Preston Lee
Just ah, just only a cool vibe.
00:43.11
Preston Lee
Ah, well good man. We’re gonna tackle this short query here today from I’m pulling it up here. We go ah from caesar or saad how are you ought to say it. We’ll call it. We’ll call him caesar he says hey guys that is caesar from. Ah, data nicely is his company. My query is as I move into being a founder what sorts of tools. Do you recommend to grow our business. So um, let me give slightly more context. He says Caesar says they prefer to do cold outreach. Ah there’s some different tools that help them find email addresses or track if an email is opened or manage you buildil campaigns. He says there’s just plenty of options on the market after which he says it may well be overwhelming as a founder as we mature away from doing every thing in gmailgoogledocs and spreadsheets. What are the highest 5 tools you recommend. We get in place to set ourselves up for long-term success. So the true query is best tools as their their company grows.
01:47.17
Clay
Huh I mean and this can be a pretty loaded query. You recognize I mean it’s There’s okay, here’s my philosophy on tools. Um.
01:49.20
Preston Lee
Why do you say that.
02:00.12
Clay
I feel and I’ll just say this since the query was asked and I get asked this query loads is like hey what’s your favorite software for whatever. Um I feel at the start I feel what someone? what? what? every business must do is to completely whiteboard their process.
02:05.90
Preston Lee
Hello.
02:17.88
Clay
Ah, for their sales pipeline from prospect to to recent client to raving fan. What does that appear to be no matter software like completely ignore software after which what you do is.
02:32.70
Preston Lee
Yep.
02:36.61
Clay
What you do is once you wipe board it out you whiteboard it out in a way where you’re thinking that is ideal in an ideal world. How does that process appear to be right? every thing from sales calls to onboarding to you realize project management to you realize,? whatever right. Um, and it’s in an ideal world. What does that appear to be after which what you do is you exit and look for the tools that may fit that So like I can sit here and like name so many alternative tools but I don’t have any freaking clue if that’s going to suit.
03:05.10
Preston Lee
Mm yeah.
03:13.97
Clay
This person’s process.
03:15.75
Preston Lee
Yeah I had the identical thought after I read the query I used to be like well you realize there’s some basic tools like for cold outreach I could say like reply io I really like um, they’ve added so many cool features. You recognize there’s like for finding emails. There’s like Hunter. Or um and there’s identical to so many, but but I agree like like um to start with, recommending tools is hard because the rationale there are so many alternative tools except for capitalism after all is is because people have so many alternative preferences like like so we work with.
03:34.20
Clay
Ah, her.
03:44.52
Clay
The.
03:47.89
Preston Lee
A whole lot and and 1000’s of freelancers on a regular basis and and someone could be diehard about like Freshbooks and one other person completely hates freshbooks and so they literally are freelancers who do similar work right? and it’s it’s identical to such a private preference and so I’m with eucle I form of hesitate to say listed here are the very best tools.
03:52.47
Clay
Um, yeah.
04:06.96
Preston Lee
To make use of for me. It’s about like what tools I feel I’ve I’ve swung each ways I’ve gone like all in on tools and pondering that’s going to be like you realize an important piece of my business after which I’ve gone super easy and I feel I prefer the latter like.
04:15.35
Clay
Um, yep.
04:23.30
Preston Lee
For me, It’s like what tools get out of my way the fastest they assist me get the job done. But then they get out of my way so I can do the true work because I feel way too often. We find yourself like as a substitute of getting tools that help us with our processes we’ve tools that then we’ve to construct processes just to administer our tools and it just becomes this whole like.
04:39.42
Clay
Yes, it’s backwards I see it on a regular basis with um, for example, high level or go high level as people prefer to refer it to um, are you familiar. It’s ah it’s an excellent popular.
04:42.84
Preston Lee
Yeah, it’s totally backwards.
04:50.26
Preston Lee
I haven’t heard of that What’s that? no.
04:56.38
Clay
Marketing all in 1 marketing software. Um, it does emails. It does s like sms text messaging it does. It’s a crm has a pipeline in any case, it’s it has like every thing. Um, it’s what I exploit and so um, you realize.
05:01.98
Preston Lee
Oh yeah, okay I’m yeah I’m looking it up right away while we talk. Okay, cool.
05:15.48
Clay
I Hate the interface I hate it. Um, the one reason I’m still using it’s because when you learn it because the training curve is so high on this. But when you learn it. It’s super powerful. It’s like essentially the most powerful marketing automation tool that I’ve seen that it worked with but.
05:18.67
Preston Lee
Ah, yeah.
05:24.95
Preston Lee
Yeah.
05:34.82
Clay
Um, but in any case to to your point This is that this right away is a shiny object to at the least the circles that I’m in and persons are signing up for highlevel because they think it’s going to resolve all their marketing problems I’m like no, it’s a tool. And so what they do is that they go sign enroll for this thing which by the best way the people at Highlevel they built this for agencies not the top user. Not not the chiropractor. Not the Hva ser but like but I’m seeing a complete bunch of those end users these small business owners signing up for it.
06:03.46
Preston Lee
Ah, got it? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:10.45
Clay
After which they’re like I don’t get it I don’t understand find out how to use it? Well it wasn’t meant for you but they’re buying this thing after which they’re altering their processes and their systems to suit this software and I’m like going back to my original point like go whiteboard your shit out after which find something that matches but they’re like.
06:12.38
Preston Lee
So yeah.
06:29.30
Clay
They’re attempting to jump on the bandwagon because everybody’s signing up for this thing.
06:30.78
Preston Lee
yeah yeah I I experienced this after I worked at ah so I I moved from like more of a standard old-fashioned corporate setting an organization that had been around like probably over 100 years I don’t actually know but a protracted time and um after which i. I got hired I left that job and I got hired at a tech startup that was just a number of years old really high- techch guys I used to be working with like all pretty young people and um it was you realize, traditional tech startup and and and we used what’s that product by Adlassian Atlassian
06:50.57
Clay
The.
07:06.77
Preston Lee
Um I don’t remember either I’m going to look it up while we’re talking. Ah yeah I feel perhaps it was yeah that sounds right? It’s form of it’s form of like a extremely complex.
07:06.79
Clay
Ah I do know you’re talking about I don’t remember what it’s called now now we’re each. We’re each googling it jira is a JiraJ I r a.
07:23.64
Clay
Yeah.
07:26.29
Preston Lee
Because I do know Atlassian bought Trello which is sort of a form of a drag and drop really easy. But I feel yeah I feel Jira was it and and um it was like we spent I’ve spent probably I don’t know a 3rd of my day.
07:26.94
Clay
Yeah, oh.
07:43.26
Preston Lee
Managing my Jira Cards and whatever I don’t even remember what they were called. It was identical to so complicated and and the and management like wouldn’t allow us to you realize, not completely fill out a card for that like if I needed to go use the restroom I feel like I needed to fill out a Jira card and like give all of them the small print. It was ridiculous and I just.
07:48.20
Clay
Um, yeah.
08:02.13
Preston Lee
I pushed back so hard but they only held on to that and and I used to be identical to guys we’re wasting a lot time just managing the method as a substitute of getting a process that gets gets business done I Hope hope you realize they’ve perhaps solved that problem since then but um, again for me, It’s like simplify simplify.
08:15.52
Clay
Um, yeah, let’s the up.
08:20.96
Preston Lee
Simply because a tool wants you so as to add categories and tags and dates and deadlines that doesn’t mean you’ve got to love if that’s helpful use it if it’s not helpful. Leave it alone. We used clickup for the longest time. Ah, and I feel we probably used like 20% of the features they offered since it’s identical to you don’t.
08:24.43
Clay
The.
08:36.50
Clay
Yeah I feel the identical way like we we’re switching to notion for that notions like easy. Yeah, yeah, it’s very minimal.
08:38.70
Preston Lee
You don’t need to use it simply because it’s there.
08:45.96
Preston Lee
Um, yeah, yeah, they form of pride themselves on being easy if I remember right.
08:54.32
Clay
Um I feel every thing’s actually black and white for essentially the most part. Um, but yeah I I feel ah you realize sorry caesar you’re probably not going to get satisfaction out of our answers but like 2 things is whiteboard your process out and select software that matches that after which. But simplify is what you said.
09:11.76
Preston Lee
Yeah, yes, just just select something easy and I feel I feel our advice goes hand in hand right? since it’s like I’m just saying like pick something that gets the job done and also you’re saying work out what the job is to be done first after which pick something that that accomplishes that so.
09:24.00
Clay
Um, yeah I need to make another point. Um, because I get caught on this little circle where I just get the itch to modify software right? Yeah but like.
09:34.93
Preston Lee
Oh I used to be gonna say this same thing. Yeah go for it. Yeah.
09:40.76
Clay
And and I’ll do that for stuff where I’m like my current software is working. Why do I need to modify simply because I get bored right and don’t be don’t follow that light. Ah, don’t fall into that that trap because if something’s working.
09:46.58
Preston Lee
Um.
09:57.69
Clay
Just don’t even take into consideration switching. It’s working. Ah.
09:59.85
Preston Lee
Yep yep yeah or even when I might say even when it’s working like 90% like I okay so here’s a extremely concrete example I used to be on Mailchimp for the longest time like years like perhaps a decade on Mailchimp and um, this other software.
10:09.91
Clay
Just further.
10:15.61
Preston Lee
Was it lively campaign I feel was the opposite software that they had this one feature that I actually desired to try so I went through the terrible awful strategy of migrating tens of 1000’s of email addresses and customer ah customer.
10:24.40
Clay
Oh god.
10:30.76
Preston Lee
All the shopper data and whatever throughout to activeca importing it setting out all upsetting. It resetting up all my campaigns.. It’s all very manual. It took Endlessly. It was a pain learning the brand new software since it was all different after which I type of used this recent feature but I didn’t really take full advantage of it. Meanwhile all the opposite like basic stuff that I needed to do frequently like sending only a typical email campaign or a follow-up or like sign-up forms. They were all far more complicated mailchimp made them super easy, an lively campaign overcomplicated them and so so meanwhile I’m miserable.
10:59.82
Clay
Assisted.
11:06.19
Preston Lee
After which a yr later I just switched back to mailchimp because I just I mean a part of it’s what you get used to right? So take that with a grain of salt when you’re deciding between those 2 pieces of software but like um I just it wasn’t price it for that one feature for that 10% if it’s working eighty or ninety percent identical to make do.
11:10.94
Clay
Um, yep.
11:22.67
Clay
Um, yep.
11:25.48
Preston Lee
With what you’ve got and and keep on with it and and keep on with it for some time I feel like people are likely to switch like every each time you realize Pat Flynn says there’s a recent software that may make you wealthy or whatever people will switch over to it and it’s identical to look you realize.
11:42.13
Clay
Ah.
11:42.55
Preston Lee
It’s not that different and never that significantly better and particularly if it’s recent. It’s not going to be higher than this thing that you simply’ve been using for 10 years it’s going to lack numerous features. So yeah, yeah, yeah, so.
11:47.98
Clay
Yeah, it’ll have bugs too that I actually have bugs.
11:56.26
Preston Lee
Anyway, lot. Ah, clearly we’ve or at the least I personally have some soapboxes on that specific topic. But caesar we hope that was helpful man. Ah the true truth of the matter is we will’t offer you a listing of top 5 tools. You have to be using. Um, but that’s some those are a number of things to contemplate whilst you’re whilst you’re selecting tools to assist.
11:59.23
Clay
Assist with the.
12:15.58
Preston Lee
Grow what you are promoting and we hope that was helpful man better of luck to you as you as you grow what you are promoting when you want your query answered like caesar or not answered like we did for caesar today. Ah you may visit freelance to founder.com/ask.
12:17.79
Clay
Um.
12:29.67
Preston Lee
And just fill out a fast form there and we’ll answer your query on the air send you the link to the podcast and you may listen in. Hopefully it’s helpful to you and Clay Mosley from gitripify.com thanks a lot man, right? Take care.
12:40.60
Clay
All right see? ah.