April 19, 2021

MM | Time Is Money & Productivity Saves You Time

MM | Time Is Money & Productivity Saves You Time

*Episode previously recorded and released as part of Kristina Stubblefield's Genius Marketing Solutions podcast.

In this episode, Kristina dives into her favorite FREE Google productivity tools to help you increase revenue and add more hours to your day!

Stay tuned to hear about all the free Google productivity tools that can save you time and energy and help you maximize your opportunities to scale your business to increase revenue.

Listen to Kristina talk about her favorite time saving tools that are FREE to use… yes, FREE! She wants to help you save precious time… and any amount she can help you get back is more time you have to market and grow your business.

In this episode, Kristina is talking about the array of Google tools available that are not only FREE to use but sync on all devices making life easier and more user-friendly.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL UNDERSTAND the productivity tools that Google offers, how these tools sync on all devices and the abundance of softwares that integrate with these tools… and why using them can give you precious time back to work on your business instead of in it!

Visit our website to send us a message or record a voicemail theringtheblingandallthethings.com and share with us your marketing pain points or any topics you would like to be considered for an upcoming episode.

Connect with the host:

Kristina Stubblefield - www.kristinastubblefield.com
instagram: @kristinastubblefield_
facebook: @kristinastubblefieldpage


Kristina Stubblefield  0:00  

In this episode, I'm diving into my favorite free Google productivity tools to help you increase revenue and add more hours to your day. By the time you finish listening, I promise, you will understand the wide range of productivity tools that Google offers, how these tools sync on all devices, and the abundance of software's that integrate with these tools, and why using them can give you precious time back to work on your business instead of in it. Welcome to Genius Marketing Solutions podcast. Hi, my name is Kristina Stubblefield. For over 15 years, I've served as a marketing strategist in coach. Also, I was once a wedding vendor. In my podcast episodes, I'm providing bite sized, digestible marketing solutions and information that can be immediately implemented, and make an impact on your business. Now, let's dive in to this episode. In this episode, I really look forward to talking about this topic, because a lot of times people come to me, and this isn't the first words out of their mouth productivity. A lot of times people don't even say that word, most of the time, they say that they've got this going on and that going on. And they're using several different software's, or maybe they're not using any software's at all. And they're kind of all over the place, when it comes to productivity. And to me, a lot of times people think I'm just not a very productive person. And, and that's that. And to be honest with you, I've been in that situation, it's taken me years, to really work on my own productivity. You know, I get sidetracked being a tech person, you know, I'm wanting to know the latest and greatest with tools and software and integration. And it's very easy to get sidetracked. But productivity can really help with increasing your revenue. And when I say that to people, I say that there's a lot of wasted time, when you're running your business, maybe I should say there can be a lot of wasted time when running your business. Because most of the time wedding professionals, they're a one man show one woman show, you're wearing all the hats, you're doing everything from accounting, booking events, calendar of availability, maybe website updates, social media, actually showing up and doing the events. And then after the events over whatever. I call it kind of like a close out. But whatever that system is once an event is over. And over the years, people have really turned to me to say, can you help. And honestly, it is really been about providing solutions to put some software most of the time, which is free or low cost in place for someone, especially if you do the same task over and over and over again. But if you're a business that you don't even do the same task over and over again, and you just have a lot of moving pieces inside your business. And that happens with a lot of wedding professionals. Then one of the first things that I mentioned to someone is the array of tools that are available, most of which are free from Google. And this isn't, too I am a Google person, I have no shame in mentioning it. I've utilized a lot of the Google tools over the years I've been a Google fan for quite a while. And the reason that it seems to be more convenient for people to use Google Mail, Gmail, for example, or the Google Calendar, or the other tools that are available, is it doesn't matter if you're a PC or an apple person, or any other type of phone that's out there is sinking your information. And what I mean by that is what's on your computer is also on your phone. And for some listening may think that's very basic, but for others, they may have not thought about that. One of the best parts of utilizing a synced


email, like Gmail, or if you use the paid version, it's called G Suite is what you see on your computer. You can also see on your smartphone, whether you're receiving an email, or sending an email. And that's really important, especially if you need to reply when you're on the go. Or maybe you're going out of town and you don't want to take your laptop with you, being able to have synced email on all your devices really can make your life a lot easier. And that leads me into two other things that I will mention in regards to Gmail. First of all, there are so many email platforms out there that you can use. But the reason about Gmail is number one, it's very easy for people that have never used it before. It's very easy to send, it's very easy to reply. Yes, there's great tools that it can integrate with it. But just the basics of being able to send emails, contracts, communication, to potential clients, and also receiving email. Also, with Gmail, you don't have a lot of problems with actually receiving email. It's very good about not being blocked. So if you're worried about actually getting communication from vendors, potential clients, Gmail does provide that great level of allowing emails to come in. Yes, they have security. And I will mention this, I highly recommend using secure passwords, not just your name, or street address, actually using uppercase, lowercase and symbols in your passwords. I know it can be frustrating to remember the different passwords, but it needs to be complex. And also don't have the same passwords for all your different logins. Because if that email, I'm sorry, if that password gets compromised, then guess what? It's compromised on 20 or 30, different logins. And you want to make sure you're keeping your level of security just in your passwords, first and foremost. So Gmail also offers an easy way to have a signature, where your business looks professional. I always recommend people using their domain, email. So and so at your business, name.com dotnet, dot, whatever it's going to be, that always looks so much more professional. But if you're not there yet, and you're just using Gmail, that's a place to start. But I always tell people, it's very easy. You can use G Suite for business email, it's very affordable every month or yearly, however you choose to pay. And you also get other tools with that paid email option through Google. So those are just some of the highlights in regards to Gmail. Now, Google Calendar, I'm a big fan of Google Calendar. And I've tried several over the years. Again, I've been doing this a long time. One of the best things about Google calendar is it integrates, which means works with, it works with several other platforms out there, whether it be a CRM system, or maybe you use a booking system, for your wedding business. That calendar integrates with a lot of different software's. So no matter how many different tools you're using, you can click to integrate it with Google Calendar. And you can pull up a one calendar on your phone, your computer, your tablet, and you can see all of your appointments. It can be color coded. You can, there's a lot of options with reminders, I can go on and on. But I just want to keep this to basics about some of the Google tools that are out there. So Google Calendar, it offers so many options. If you have multiple people that work with you or work for you. You can also share your calendar so they can see your schedule as well. There's just an array of features that are available with Google Calendar. And again, it's something that you can have that app even if you have iPhone or you have an iPad, it does still work with Apple products.


And there's not a lot of glitches, knock on wood. There's not a lot of glitches that I hear happening with Google products on Apple. So that is always a nice thing when you don't have problems on other platforms. One of the other There are tools with Google, that a lot of times when I meet with wedding professionals in regards to their marketing advertising strategies, is Google Photos. They don't realize that you can have your photos organized by event by date. So if someone texts you a picture from an event, or if you take a picture, and you have it on your mobile phone, your smartphone, you can actually using the Google Photos app, you can actually upload it into Google Photos, then all you have to do is go to Google Photos on your laptop, desktop, tablet, and those photos you can access, you don't have to email them to yourself, or Facebook, message them to yourself to get them from your smartphone. And this has come up even recently. And as wedding professionals, most of the time you get photos or if not, you should ask the photographer to share those photos with you. And obviously, make sure you give photo credits. But that gives you so many options to use on your website or your social media. But the time that you can spend getting them from one device to the other, because most of the time people do their social media, or update their website, things like that from their desktop or their laptop, what they find that most of their photos or videos are on their smartphone. And so that's a really great tool from Google, that helps you save time, because at the end of the day time is money. If you could cut down your time, by using these productivity tools, guess what that either gives you one more time with your family or friends. Number two, it can give you time to work more on marketing your business, or maybe on booking more events. And that's going to equal more revenue. So Google Photos can really help cut down your time. The other tool is Google Drive. Now we can go on a complete tangent about backups, you would not believe the number of people that I meet with that have no backup, if their computer died tomorrow, or wouldn't start or had a virus or malware on it. They'd be dead in the water, so to speak. Now, if you're a DJ, that's a that's a whole nother problem, because most DJs use their laptop for digital music. But even if you're just another type of wedding professional, and you don't have your laptop, could you still conduct business. And I encourage you to really put some thought to this. Because most of the time it will not cross someone's mind until they the morning they go to hit the start button on their laptop and nothing happens. Well, my contracts are on there, my photos are on there, all my notes are on there about an upcoming event. That can happen. I've seen it happen. I've heard many stories about it happening. And most of the time it happens at the most inconvenient time possible. So Google Drive is an online storage. It's in the cloud. And even with a free gmail account, you still get storage space available to you. Now if you're going to store lots of photos and lots of files and videos, you probably will need to go into a paid account. But the paid accounts are very affordable, a few dollars a month to be honest with you. So Google Drive can play a role as a backup.


So if you have Word documents, Excel documents on your computer, Google has the same similar software called Google Docs, and Google Sheets. Google Docs, obviously is very similar to word and Google Sheets is very similar to excel. But what drive also gives you the option I'm talking about Google Drive gives you the option of sharing those documents. If someone works for you, or you need to share something with someone, instead of having to email it to them. You can go in and share that document. Maybe you need to do a collaboration with someone and here's my part of it. And now you can share that document where a person can edit it as well, and they can do their part in it. In addition to sharing Your documents with others, you also have the ability with Google Drive to access your files from your smartphone from another computer or laptop. It's just a very convenient way to serve as a backup, but also the convenience of being able to access your data from another location. Of course, one of the other tools that I'll mention is Google meet. It's very similar to zoom. It's just built in the Google platform. So if you use Gmail, or calendar, you will see the option in regards to Google meet. And it is just one of those tools that could be beneficial. I know that everybody or a lot of people maybe I should say, seem comfortable with using zoom. But if you use Google's products, you may find that it's more convenient to use Google meet. It's just your own preference. And the last Google tool that I'll mention, and this is a not all of Google's tools that they make available, especially to small business owners. But one of the other tools is Google Forms. This is a great way to get digital forms completed. There are other software's out there, but Google Forms allows you to create a custom form. And a person, you can send them a link, and they can complete it, whether it be a text box that they need to fill out, check boxes, or they need to provide you an answer. This is a way maybe that you need to get event information, instead of emailing them a PDF that they have to print out. And then handwrite it, scan it in or take a picture of it with their smartphone and send it back to you. If you use Google Forms, it gives you the ability to allow somebody to complete a form digitally, on the computer, laptop, their smartphone. And when they hit submit, it comes back to you, you can even turn on the notification. So you get an email when a person completes that form. And you don't have to have a separate form each time someone needs to fill it out. I'll go back to the example of an event information form. Maybe you need to know what time the event is, where it's located, where to park, what door, can you enter some specifics about where you're going to be set up, or they need to have a paragraph that they can fill in as much text as they need to. There's no worrying about reading someone's handwriting, or can you make out exactly what they've put on the form, it is just a convenience to you, as well as your clients to be able to send that digital form, and then them be able to complete it. However, it's easiest for them. Now, if they need to print it out, they can still print it out. But they have the ability to just complete it on the computer or on their smartphone. And that can make all the difference. Especially when you start to put some of these productivity tools in place. It's one less form that maybe you have to go and then print out. You've got it right there. You can save it on your computer or laptop. And it's


accessible from any device because it's on your Google platform. And at the end of the day, the reason that I wanted to cover this topic was because productivity plays such a big role in maximizing your opportunities to scale your business to increase your revenue. Because if you save yourself an hour or two hours, three hours, or plus a week, that is much more time to market your business to others. It's an opportunity to book more events. It's an opportunity to work on your business, maybe to come up with that social media strategy or to come up with that marketing strategy. Maybe you have an upcoming wedding show that gives you time to put thought in what you're going to hand out what you're going to talk about. How's your booth going to look, you get to decide what happens with your schedule. And by focusing some time, and it's not always the easiest putting productivity tools in place. So I speak from experience, it's a pain in the ass to be honest with you. But the reward is so worth what you have to go through to get those softwares those tools in place to save you time, because I've as I've already said, time is money for wedding professionals. And we want to maximize the time you have to spend either in your business or with your family. I look forward to hearing back from you all about this topic. What productivity tools are you using? What software has worked great for you? Visit the website and hit the contact button or press the microphone and record a message to me I look forward to hearing what you all are using to get the most out of the time you work on or in your business. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of genius marketing solutions. If you would like to get notified of upcoming episodes, make sure to click the subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform. We welcome any feedback from topic ideas to questions you may have. You can visit our website for previous episodes or to send us a message visit genius Marketing Solutions podcast.com


Transcribed by https://otter.ai