IAM1890 – Automation Expert Streamlines Businesses’ Systems

Transcription:

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Mary Sue Dahill Teaser 00:00

And I'll tell you my favorite tool is Active Campaign. So I go in there and I'll type in Active Campaign. I can read reviews about it, but what I like better is I can see how it's categorized. So, I think it's part of the CRM all in one. So I can go see what does it mean to be part of the CRM all in one category.

And what are the other competitors in that space? So maybe I can, I get ideas on then what other tools to be looking at.

Intro 00:24

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the IAMCEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:52

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresham from the IAMCEO podcast, and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year.

And we're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, the business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, and what I like to call the CB Nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month, we are focusing on operations. The systems will set you free. So think about systems, think about flow, sustainability, potentially working out in your morning routine, waking up early e-commerce, and different business models, think of the operations in the models that basically set up the foundation to allow the creativity within organizations, but also to make sure the trains are running on time and things are going as they should.

Now, this is extremely important because we often turn to the sexy parts of business and forget about the operations and how important So I really want to focus this month on this specific topic. So sit back and enjoy this special episode at the IAMCEO podcast.

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the IAMCEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Mary Sue Dahill of Work Smarter Digital. Mary Sue it's awesome to have you on the show.

Mary Sue Dahill 02:12

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Gresham Harkless 02:14

Definitely super excited to have you on. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Mary Sue so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

And Mary Sue has the unique ability to translate technology for non-techies. She helps business owners invest in the right tool, digital tools that save them money and time. And while they avoid the frustration of tools that don't work.

Mary Sue helps businesses streamline their systems, leverage the right digital tools and automate workflows so they can work smart and maximize their time and money for the greatest impact.

Her clients grow faster with more profit because they don't have to hire people to do tasks that can be automated and don't waste money on digital tools that don't do the job. Mary Sue, are you ready to speak to the IAMCEO community?

Mary Sue Dahill 02:52

I am awesome.

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Gresham Harkless 02:54

Awesome. Awesome. Your bio was definitely like music to my soul. So I appreciate all the awesome things you're doing for the business community, but I wanted to hear a little bit more about how you got started. Can you tell us your CEO story? We'll let you start your business.

Mary Sue Dahill 03:05

Sure. So I have about 20 years of experience in technology management. A lot of that was at Blackboard, which probably many of your listeners have probably used. And when I started working for myself was 2017 and I started doing similar stuff to what I had been doing at Blackboard.

So Project management, software development team kind of work, and I was working for much larger tech companies, and that was fine. But I did find working for myself that I was struggling with all of the same things that any small business struggles with, even though I felt very organized as a person.

And so I started looking to digital tools to help me, and I figured out how to do it. And so I got a lot of little tools that I was using that were pretty inexpensive and making me very efficient. And in that process, I found that other small business owners did not have my skill set. And so they were just drowning.

And so in 2018, the fall of 2018, I actually pivoted to focus on the micro-businesses and really small businesses on their digital tools. And it's been wonderful ever since because I really have such a big impact on their day-to-day life.

Gresham Harkless 04:18

Yeah, absolutely. And I think once you get awareness around those things, it makes you pretty, it can make you pretty unstoppable.

Mary Sue Dahill 04:24

Yes, I agree.

Gresham Harkless 04:25

Awesome. So I wanted to hear a little bit more about, like, how you work with your process and what exactly you do to help support them.

Mary Sue Dahill 04:32

Yeah. So, one I start with because a lot of people don't know what's possible is I actually do go out and speak a lot about automation to different groups. But when I start working with a client, we start with kind of the identification phase. We talk through all of the operations of their business.

And where they're having bottlenecks, where there are gaps and things are likely falling through the cracks. Or where they're also reentering the same information in multiple places. So from that, then we talk about, what do they want to achieve with their business? Is their business growing?

Are they starting a new kind of service? That sort of thing. And once I have that picture, then we start talking actually about the types of tools that would be best in their business. And if they have a lot of tools, I might actually do an audit of those tools. Cause I do find, no matter the company or like how techie the person is, they aren't using all of the integrations that they may have within the tools they already own.

And then we select those tools that are right for them. And I help them actually set it up. And automate. And usually I'm focusing on not so much the marketing, it's, how do you deal with the prospect process to selling, to onboarding, invoicing payment the kind of service delivery phase, and then the ongoing communication afterwards.

So those are the things that I focus on. And one of my clients, I love to talk about her. Her name is Celie and her business is Simplify You. So she's a professional organizer and she, so I loved working with her cause everything had a system. It was all paper. Literally everything's paper and it's nicely organized, but she was like, I just need some extra time.

Her projects are all day and she has a team of people that she would pull from to work on different projects. And she's literally booked, I think four to five days a week, every week. And she had no way of scheduling. That was like her biggest bottleneck is how do I pull from my pool of 20 people to work on specific projects?

And we didn't do anything fancy because she was using a paper calendar and she was not using like her Google calendar. So we came up with just something simple where she would fill out a Google form of her project. It had all the information that she needed and it would actually set up the customer and her invoice system.

It would put them into her mailing list, which she was not doing regularly. And then it would set up a calendar appointment. On that day for her project, and then she could just invite her subcontractors. And if they accepted it, they would, they were saying they could accept the project. And I'm happy to say in 2020, she did not buy a paper 2020 calendar.

Gresham Harkless 07:14

That's a good success.

Mary Sue Dahill 07:17

And now she'll call me and be like, I need to set up this zap from Zapier.

Gresham Harkless 07:24

Exactly. And I love the fact that you talked about when I read it in bio for non-techies as well. I'm a techie. So I love technology. But I think there are so many improvements of these products as well, too. Like when you sometimes have a product and you've had it for three years, you don't realize like all the untapped potential as you spoke to that might be there that we haven't really even visited.

Mary Sue Dahill 07:47

Exactly. And that's something that since I've been doing this a year, my mentor was like, you should have an annual review of their digital ecosystem for that very reason.

Gresham Harkless 07:58

Yeah, that's a really great idea because I think that and a lot of times as the businesses grow and expand as well, too, they just like the software and the systems itself improve. We also probably have more problems that come up and there might be able to be solved in different ways. So I think that's a phenomenal idea.

Mary Sue Dahill 08:14

Yes. And we pivot a lot of small businesses. We can so all those little pivots and adjustments can impact your system itself.

Gresham Harkless 08:21

Exactly. That makes so much sense. So, what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce or the thing that sets you or your organization apart?

Mary Sue Dahill 08:29

Yeah, I was thinking about this one, what is my secret sauce? I think what it is, is that when I'm talking to someone, I can make connections about how they're doing their work and paying attention to like their habits or their mode of working and then connecting it to the digital tools.

Because I do find with especially small businesses, they buy the tool that their friends suggested and it doesn't necessarily mean that it fits for them.

So, just because you have a CRM does not mean that it works for everyone. So I feel like that's what I do is match the right tool to them as a person and to their business needs.

Gresham Harkless 09:09

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I know we touched on some of these already, but I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack.

So that could be like an apple book or a habit that you have or some of the things that help make you more effective and efficient.

Mary Sue Dahill 09:22

Just a natural part of who I am is that I really am not a routine person. People think because I do systems that I like to check boxes and I follow rules and I'm not that person.

I'm my own worst enemy like anyone. But my recent thing that I love is the rocket book. Have you heard of this?

Gresham Harkless 09:39

I have not. Does it digitally go somewhere?

Mary Sue Dahill 09:42

It's yes, a reusable notebook. And so the paper feels like paper, but it's a little bit more plasticky and you just use a normal pen. But it's an app that takes that scans that and you can set up where it goes. So that's what I love is, I can still take notes the way that I like taking notes because I tend to draw pictures and arrows. It helps me think and this makes it easy to capture it and put it with my clients folder, on Google drive.

So I have places to send it and. I love it. So it's gotten rid of a lot of paper around me.

Gresham Harkless 10:15

Yeah. It's so funny that you say that because as I literally sit here writing down notes from what you're saying, I don't have the rocket book, but I definitely use my notes because I still love writing and I miss the writing.

But I also am notorious for writing something down. I can't find it in about a month or so because I place it somewhere in some notebook that I'm not using anymore. But I love that just because I feel like there's. things out there just rocket book, just what I'm writing on now that allow you to mix the old school kind of writing down.

Mary Sue Dahill 10:42

Yes.

Gresham Harkless 10:43

Tangible thing with the digital. Let's not lose this because I might need it later aspect.

Mary Sue Dahill 10:48

And this is something because my clients tend to be people that like have a, if they have a paper calendar and they're telling me they're overwhelmed, I'm like, you're my client.

This is just a great step toward using the digital stuff. And it makes you feel confident that you can achieve the automation and everything. But I love it just because it does help me. Pull my notes into where I'm going to be looking for them the next time without having to capture all these notebooks and flip through them. I have definitely done that.

Gresham Harkless 11:19

Yeah, I'm notorious for that. So I try not to do that. My job is not to do that anymore. I shouldn't be writing stuff on paper, even though I still do. But we're all a work in progress. So, and I know you touched on this kind of a little bit. Do you feel like because you do like the more structured things for clients?

Does that? What are some of the reasons why you feel like you want to have a little bit more freedom, maybe like your routine and things like that.

Mary Sue Dahill 11:41

Probably. Probably. What I like about having the systems is that I don't have to think about it. That's like my biggest productivity hack is you can create a system to manage stuff or you just automate it and you never have to manage it again.

So that's what I prefer to do.

Gresham Harkless 11:57

Yes. I'm part of that tribe as well too. There's a quote that says there's freedom in structure and it's not so much that you'd like the structure, you'd like the structure so that you can be free to do whatever you need to do.

Mary Sue Dahill 12:07

Yes. Yes. That's good, I'm going to have to find that. I like that.

Gresham Harkless 12:11

Yeah. I don't know who said it. If you can't find it, then you can definitely say it was me. So I appreciate that.

Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be like a word of wisdom or piece of advice or something you might tell a client or even your younger business owner.

Mary Sue Dahill 12:26

Yeah. So my nugget is how to select a digital tool. Cause I find this, A lot of people don't do this. So I use kind of three, I do three things when I'm looking at digital tools. First, I start with G2 Crowd. So G as in George, the number two crowd. It's a crowd-sourcing software review site. And it's totally free and open for anyone to see.

And so someone tells me this new software that they purchased. And I'll tell you my favorite tool is ActiveCampaign. So I go in there and I'll type in ActiveCampaign. I can read reviews about it, but what I like better is I can see how it's categorized. So, I think it's part of the CRM all in one.

So I can go see what does it mean to be part of the CRM all in one category and what are the other competitors in that space. So maybe I can, I get ideas on then what other tools to be looking at.

Then I go to Zapier to just make sure that it can integrate with other things because if you can't integrate your digital tools, that means you or one of your team members is going to be the integrator. You're going to be typing information.

So that's the 2nd and then the 3rd is checking out their help documentation because if you can't find information in the help or find it useful, then you're going to need an expert to actually set it up for you and all those sorts of things. So it just makes sure that it's usable to you. Are those three steps.

Gresham Harkless 13:56

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So that would ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Mary Sue, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Mary Sue Dahill 14:07

I think for me, it means having that vision of where my business is going, because even though I'm a baby business being a year old, I do have big plans that I'd like to have a team and all those things, but I need to be staying ahead of where I am. And thinking strategically of where I'm going.

Gresham Harkless 14:24

And Mary Sue definitely appreciate that definition. Appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know. And then, of course, how best they can get a whole view and find out about all the awesome work that you're doing.

Mary Sue Dahill 14:38

Sure. So I am doing what I'm calling techno mastermind. It's a monthly essentially, and I'm talking about different topics each month and it's totally free. And I'll make sure, I don't know that I gave you the link, but I'll send you the link. And this next month's topic is information management.

And so it's because I have a service called the paperless practice where we use the rocket book, but it's a way of helping people really leverage their Google Drive or their one drive to manage all the information they have in their business in one place.

So I have about next several months. What's the next one? Oh, contracts. That's another one. Asking a lawyer friend of mine to come and talk about the do's and don'ts, but also about the tools to get a signature and manage that in a more streamlined way.

And the best way to get in touch with me is my website. worksmarterdigital.com and my emails on there and you can schedule a call with me if you'd like to talk about your tools and the techno mastermind is also linked from there.

Gresham Harkless 15:40

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. We will definitely have those links and information in the show notes, but definitely appreciate obviously what you're doing. for so many entrepreneurs and business owners, and definitely continually to remind us how important it is to sharpen the saw and having those techno masterminds and opportunity to hear from people in different fields, exactly what they're doing as well, too, so that we can again, try to be as successful as possible.

So I appreciate that. And then we will have that information in the show notes again, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Outro 16:05

Thank you for listening to the IAMCEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. IAMCEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Subscribe and leave us a 5-star rating. Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the IAMCEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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