Episode 22: The Signal Software Systems

Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the Business Flow Formula Podcast. I'm Erica Dowell, the CEO here at Signal Operations where we help business owners listen to the signals that their business is sending them through finances, operations, people and marketing. Now we started off in 2018 in finance and we've expanded into helping business owners in these other areas as well. Now today's episode is episode two in a four part series about how I run my business and, and all the behind the scenes, the piping hot tea and that kind of thing. So today we're actually going to be talking about the systems that I use and have put in place for running my business. Now when I talk about systems, I'm really talking about the software behind my business and things that I rely on on a day by day basis really to run the business, whether that is me or my team. These are the tools that we're using. Now I want to point out the caveat of we intentionally try not to use AI as much as possible in our business. We make sure that we're not using it in our marketing to create content. We can use it to create a bullet list of ideas or get us running with some content that we want to create, but no images, no, no uh, blogs written by AI, nothing like that. On the other side of this, I also am a minimalist. I don't uh, like having a lot of things in my house, in my office, and that even goes for my workflows. And so when I am using software, I'm using it intentionally to make sure that I'm using it to its fullest extent before I go and try to supplement with another software. And so to start us off, I run my calendar, I run my emails, my chats, all in Google Suite. All of my file organization, everything like that is all in Google Suite. You don't really need much more past this. All of my meetings are in Google Meet. I don't use Zoom for example because it's an extra software that my existing software can already handle. The one thing that we added on top of this to manage our operations is Asana. And that's all of our task management or planning out our content calendar or just planning out, uh, what I need to do in a timely manner and basis for the team. They're assigning me tasks, I'm assigning them tasks. So between Google and Asana, our tasks are managed that way. We also don't use Slack intentionally within, within Signal. Um, and that's because our chats are happening within Google. We don't need to Add on top of this, we don't need another software to log into. Everything is in one spot. From here we have our emails under control and that's great, our calendar. But we also need to move into our finances and, and there's three key softwares that I use for my finances. One is a little bit optional, two are certainly not. And the first one is Xero X E R O and that one is my accounting software. That's how I invoice all of my clients. That's where I um, have all my payment systems integrated into. And that's ultimately where I manage all of my expenses. And in order to get all of my expenses into Xero, keeping track of all of them, I use a tool that's included in Xero called Hubdoc. And that is basically my virtual filing cabinet. Every single receipt, every single PDF bill, even government correspondence goes into Hub Docs so that I am easily able to find it later. An example of this actually is I was trying to figure out how old my Apple Watch was when I had it and I knew that I had purchased it through the business and therefore I had the receipt still. And so I just go into my Hub Doc, type in Apple, scroll back a few years and find it. Of course I'm not really buying that many expensive Apple things, so it was easy to find. But this is just an example of having that proof when I needed it later in order to figure out is the battery lasting well enough or not, and that kind of thing. Another example that you might do with this is if you have to return something and you throw out the receipt, you still have that receipt in your Hub Doc and you can just pull it up either on the mobile app or, or go find it online, um, on your laptop, save it as a photo and head out to the store. So that's where that all comes in handy from here. The third finance tool that I use is Sift, also a zero product and that is financial forecasting. And so I use that not only for myself to forecast my cash flow for the next year or two, but I also use it for clients in order to forecast their finances or create budgets or just see how things are going. The great thing about Sift is it's already integrated into Xero and it can just help expedite that forecasting and leave the guesswork out of it and get you started, uh, right where you need to be and so then you can start doing the work from there. I guess I do have one more tool that I use when it comes to finances. And that's payment integrations. We all need to get paid. And so I recently uh, in the last three months actually switched from stripe payments for my invoicing over to Helm Payment Systems. And that's because one, Helm is Canadian and two, the processing fees are a lot less. And I just think that provides a much better, well rounded experience for clients. You can accept credit card or, or even direct deposit withdrawals from your client's bank. So pre authorized debits. And that's how I manage all the finances in my business. When it comes to people, people are very, very, very important in my business. And we'll have a separate episode on this of course, and how I manage people, how I hire people, that kind of thing. But fundamentally I use one software to make sure my employees get paid and that's WagePoint. And all of my clients use WagePoint and it's number one payroll for me. Super easy. You can automate your payroll, um, if your employees are salary based, not hourly based, but that's a whole other discussion of course. But WagePoint is the payroll answer for you. Finally moving into marketing. This one is a little bit interesting, but I think that we use primarily uh, three or four softwares here. And so the first one of course is Squarespace. All of our websites are hosted on Squarespace. Those websites have been created and branded for each unique brand and element that we have. And then from there I also use another Squarespace tool called Acuity Scheduling. That's how clients, new uh, clients, everyone can book onto my calendar or team members calendars if they're performing those services. And it keeps it easy that way. It syncs into our Google Calendar so that if we have a day off or other meetings, things aren't getting booked over and double booked. So keeps it easy that way. The next part of marketing of course, and then um, that's the content creation. We use Canva to create that using different elements or photos that we've had taken or B roll, whatever. I even edit the podcast sometimes in Canva. So it's a pretty robust tool for us and can do a lot of things that we need it to do. We haven't need to, needed to explore outside of this. And then uh, the last marketing piece here is Brevo for email marketing. This is a tool that we found recently. It's Canadian, but it's also a B corp. And seeing as we're a B corp, we want to support other B corps and so we use Bravo for our email marketing. Those are pretty much all the systems and tools that I use, I went down a pretty long list here. Now this is the list that works for my business. You'll notice that we don't have Chat GPT, we don't have Claude, we don't have any of that. There are softwares that have AI built into them. We have a whole AI policy around this of course. But if the AI is built into the software and can help us achieve our work faster, such as the bank statement reading that hubdoc has, that's AI, that is an appropriate use of AI and those kinds of tools for us. Um, and so we're good to use those kinds of things. I would say ultimately you have to find the systems that work for you. That said, I probably spend upwards of 300 to $500 dollars, $400 on software every single month and that seems really expensive for me. And that's on the low end of what I've talked to business owners about or even some of my clients. And so I just really encourage you to dive deep into your systems and your software to make sure that it's working best for you and that you're not going and using several different types of software because then you're task switching in your mind and that's not really working. Now if you need help honing in on your systems and your software, feel free to book a 60 minute coaching session with me and let's just dive in and see if we can simplify your life, make it more minimal so that you don't have to go between all these different softwares and remember what is where. You need to know that your marketing primarily is done in Canva. You need to know that your emails, chats and tasks are in Google. Your payroll only ever in Wage Point. It's not done anywhere else. Websites, Squarespace, booking on calendars, Acuity, Easy Peasy Finances Zero and Hub Doc. That's it. So those are like eight to 10 different softwares that I use. But if you have any questions, send us a DM at Signal Operations.