WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.980 Today we're gonna be talking about how to have clear, 2 00:00:02.980 --> 00:00:05.360 concise client communication. 3 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:09.160 This is something that's very, very valuable. 4 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:12.640 I learned this originally when I was, my very first job, 5 00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:16.200 I was an intern doing video editing in Coca-Cola. 6 00:00:16.200 --> 00:00:18.400 And that's where I met a guy named Lance Campbell, 7 00:00:18.400 --> 00:00:19.860 who was my first boss. 8 00:00:19.860 --> 00:00:23.680 And I did the most boring video edits you've ever done. 9 00:00:23.680 --> 00:00:25.500 So we would sit there and edit like, 10 00:00:25.500 --> 00:00:28.280 just like safety training OSHA videos. 11 00:00:28.720 --> 00:00:30.820 You can't imagine like a worse, 12 00:00:30.820 --> 00:00:34.280 less interesting type of topic to be editing content. 13 00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:36.840 And we'd have like a thousand videos to edit. 14 00:00:36.840 --> 00:00:38.680 So we'd have spreadsheets and all this stuff, 15 00:00:38.680 --> 00:00:40.000 and we're doing these massive projects. 16 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:42.720 So they would need to like update all these things 17 00:00:42.720 --> 00:00:44.960 with like slightly different narration. 18 00:00:44.960 --> 00:00:47.120 So anyway, it was this really complex project. 19 00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:48.880 And Lance was one of the guys who was just like, 20 00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:51.440 taught me first on how to communicate 21 00:00:51.440 --> 00:00:53.080 very clearly with clients. 22 00:00:53.080 --> 00:00:56.320 Because he had this style that was really great, 23 00:00:56.320 --> 00:00:58.120 talking to these Coca-Cola execs, 24 00:00:58.960 --> 00:00:59.880 and he'd been doing it for decades. 25 00:00:59.880 --> 00:01:03.480 And it was very crisp, and it was very to the point. 26 00:01:03.480 --> 00:01:07.440 And it would just be like, hey, comma, Joe, 27 00:01:07.440 --> 00:01:10.960 you know, saw this, got this, three bullet points, Lance. 28 00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:13.160 Like, it's just very crisp and tight. 29 00:01:13.160 --> 00:01:15.240 And when I was starting out in my agency, 30 00:01:15.240 --> 00:01:16.360 I did everything the wrong way. 31 00:01:16.360 --> 00:01:18.920 I was like, dear client, 32 00:01:18.920 --> 00:01:22.060 I'm so excited to be sharing this moment with you 33 00:01:22.060 --> 00:01:23.960 and this project, and can I just say 34 00:01:23.960 --> 00:01:25.400 how great it is to work with you? 35 00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:27.960 You know, like we would just share way too much information 36 00:01:28.800 --> 00:01:29.680 and the bigger the clients you're gonna be working with, 37 00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:31.320 like the busier they're gonna be. 38 00:01:31.320 --> 00:01:35.160 So this whole process of us working at Enovo and our team, 39 00:01:35.160 --> 00:01:38.080 it works best when there's just the fewest amount of people. 40 00:01:38.080 --> 00:01:41.600 And that works well when we have 41 00:01:41.600 --> 00:01:43.920 the most senior people on the team. 42 00:01:43.920 --> 00:01:45.540 So the way to get the most senior people on team 43 00:01:45.540 --> 00:01:46.640 is don't waste their time. 44 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:48.880 So if you have a moment, a call, 45 00:01:48.880 --> 00:01:51.120 you have their attention on an email, 46 00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:53.400 like it is just skimmable, 47 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:55.440 they can get to the point really, really quick. 48 00:01:55.440 --> 00:01:57.320 It's not us like figuring things out 49 00:01:57.680 --> 00:01:58.520 or getting clear. 50 00:01:58.520 --> 00:01:59.920 So when we do communication, 51 00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:02.560 we always wanna basically share just clarity, 52 00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:04.120 like we're exporting clarity 53 00:02:04.120 --> 00:02:06.800 as far as like what we're expecting of them, 54 00:02:06.800 --> 00:02:08.240 what they're expecting of us, 55 00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:11.560 and it should be also just super quick to digest. 56 00:02:11.560 --> 00:02:13.440 And so we're gonna talk through a few ways 57 00:02:13.440 --> 00:02:14.280 that that's gonna look, 58 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:15.100 and we get really practical. 59 00:02:15.100 --> 00:02:17.300 We're gonna go into like how to run a live meeting. 60 00:02:17.300 --> 00:02:19.040 So doing the live type communication, 61 00:02:19.040 --> 00:02:22.200 how to do async communication through email or Slack, 62 00:02:22.200 --> 00:02:24.040 and some of the best practices there. 63 00:02:24.040 --> 00:02:26.600 And so all of us are kind of learning this on the job, 64 00:02:26.640 --> 00:02:28.200 the team that's here currently. 65 00:02:28.200 --> 00:02:29.520 And so where a lot of this is happening 66 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:31.300 sort of as we do projects, 67 00:02:31.300 --> 00:02:32.140 but I thought would be good 68 00:02:32.140 --> 00:02:34.520 is like, let's just talk about client communication. 69 00:02:34.520 --> 00:02:36.800 We'll get into some questions and some details. 70 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:38.560 And then this will kind of create like the playbook 71 00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:40.120 for just the general overview, 72 00:02:40.120 --> 00:02:41.240 how we do communication 73 00:02:41.240 --> 00:02:42.800 and everything else should kind of fit into this. 74 00:02:42.800 --> 00:02:46.160 So the first big thing with communication 75 00:02:46.160 --> 00:02:47.600 and why we even do this 76 00:02:47.600 --> 00:02:49.440 is because for us, 77 00:02:49.440 --> 00:02:51.680 the communication actually builds trust. 78 00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:54.040 If you can clearly communicate things, 79 00:02:54.040 --> 00:02:55.880 sometimes even better than the client 80 00:02:56.280 --> 00:02:57.680 can articulate things. 81 00:02:57.680 --> 00:02:59.640 It just builds a tremendous amount of trust. 82 00:02:59.640 --> 00:03:01.520 We've seen this with Ryan, 83 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:03.740 when we've dove into the shape of stuff. 84 00:03:03.740 --> 00:03:06.760 Once you can clearly kind of communicate back 85 00:03:06.760 --> 00:03:07.600 the requirements, 86 00:03:07.600 --> 00:03:09.800 once you can clearly communicate the problem 87 00:03:09.800 --> 00:03:13.100 even better than maybe we can on our own project, 88 00:03:13.100 --> 00:03:14.080 it just makes it, 89 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:15.200 it just builds a ton of trust. 90 00:03:15.200 --> 00:03:16.560 Okay, well, this person gets it. 91 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:18.040 In fact, I think they understand the problem 92 00:03:18.040 --> 00:03:19.200 better than I do. 93 00:03:19.200 --> 00:03:20.540 And that's kind of where we wanna be. 94 00:03:20.540 --> 00:03:23.320 Every time we send out an email, a text, 95 00:03:23.320 --> 00:03:25.800 we host a call. 96 00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:27.440 So being very clear, 97 00:03:27.440 --> 00:03:31.240 being very open and just honest with people, 98 00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:33.040 all of these clients that we're working with 99 00:03:33.040 --> 00:03:35.940 have really good relationships with me and our team. 100 00:03:35.940 --> 00:03:37.720 And so that's who we're talking to. 101 00:03:37.720 --> 00:03:40.400 We're not talking to some corporate client 102 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:42.500 that's got a hundred people and their team. 103 00:03:42.500 --> 00:03:44.320 Like these are smaller teams 104 00:03:44.320 --> 00:03:46.360 that we're typically talking with the founder 105 00:03:46.360 --> 00:03:48.200 or the co-founders on the call. 106 00:03:48.200 --> 00:03:51.200 And this is a great time to just be super honest, 107 00:03:51.200 --> 00:03:53.000 super clear upfront 108 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:55.320 and just build that trust every piece. 109 00:03:55.960 --> 00:03:57.760 They're not just buying code from us. 110 00:03:57.760 --> 00:03:59.200 Like we're not just spitting out code. 111 00:03:59.200 --> 00:04:00.440 They're not just sending us requirements. 112 00:04:00.440 --> 00:04:01.840 We send back projects. 113 00:04:01.840 --> 00:04:04.140 They're actually taking time to invest in their business, 114 00:04:04.140 --> 00:04:05.340 take time and money. 115 00:04:05.340 --> 00:04:07.520 Because yes, clients are giving us money, 116 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:09.940 but at the other time, clients are giving us time. 117 00:04:09.940 --> 00:04:12.600 And time in a business is actually way more valuable 118 00:04:12.600 --> 00:04:14.680 in some ways than the money. 119 00:04:14.680 --> 00:04:17.740 Because if they're gonna get this new feature 120 00:04:17.740 --> 00:04:18.579 that's gonna help their business, 121 00:04:18.579 --> 00:04:20.399 but it's gonna take two months to build, 122 00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:23.040 they have to not use that feature for two months 123 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:25.440 until we build it and then they can start to use it. 124 00:04:25.440 --> 00:04:27.880 So they're giving us two months of time 125 00:04:27.880 --> 00:04:30.080 that they didn't, you know, that's gonna cost them. 126 00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:32.200 Now, I think our process is very efficient. 127 00:04:32.200 --> 00:04:33.360 I think it's very crisp. 128 00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:34.200 We can get, you know, 129 00:04:34.200 --> 00:04:36.640 meaningful pieces of work done quickly. 130 00:04:36.640 --> 00:04:39.120 So I think this is a great way to just keep that in mind. 131 00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:41.480 Like when we're asking for time, 132 00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:43.760 either we're asking for them to be on a call with us, 133 00:04:43.760 --> 00:04:45.760 we're asking them to trust us for a few weeks 134 00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:47.040 to go build something. 135 00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:49.160 They're essentially trusting us with the time 136 00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:51.720 and the money to go and build this thing out. 137 00:04:51.720 --> 00:04:54.560 And so just keep in mind that, you know, 138 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:56.560 trust is, it can be fragile. 139 00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:59.200 It can either be strengthened or eroded 140 00:04:59.200 --> 00:05:00.800 as we go through every phase. 141 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.880 interaction. So it's keeping it just continual, building trust, building trust, building trust. 142 00:05:04.880 --> 00:05:10.240 This does not mean that we tell clients what they want to hear. This is being very clear, 143 00:05:10.240 --> 00:05:15.120 very honest, articulating, being clear about what's the problem, what's actually going on. 144 00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:19.280 We recently had an outage for a client. I'm not gonna mention names or clients, 145 00:05:19.280 --> 00:05:25.280 but we had an outage. And when that happened, the best thing, we can't fix that there's a 146 00:05:25.280 --> 00:05:30.480 problem. And it was something that we caused for whatever reason. And so the best thing we can do 147 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:36.320 is actually tell them there's a problem before they even find out. So we quickly built up trust 148 00:05:36.320 --> 00:05:40.960 in this way by starting to text, starting to email, hey, by the way, this happened, 149 00:05:40.960 --> 00:05:45.680 letting you know we're on it. And then what we did is just every 20 minutes, we sent them another 150 00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:50.560 text like, hey, we're still working on it, figured out this, working on that. Hey, 20 minutes later, 151 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:54.080 we're doing this, we're doing this. And we did that for three and a half hours. Now that's not 152 00:05:54.080 --> 00:06:01.200 fun. It rarely happens. Those types of crazy, critical, show-stopping bugs can happen. And we 153 00:06:01.200 --> 00:06:06.560 can get into those moments. But if we can actually use that opportunity to, at the end of that, 154 00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:12.240 actually have more trust in us than less trust, because the worst way that can go is something 155 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:17.200 bad happens. One, we don't know about it for a while. So we've really burned a bunch of time. 156 00:06:17.200 --> 00:06:22.240 Then they post, hey, by the way, we think this thing's broken. And we're like, okay, we'll go 157 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:24.720 look at it. And we're like, oh, yeah, no, you're right, it is broken. And then we just start 158 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:29.440 working on it. That's actually the worst thing we could do, because we haven't confirmed like, 159 00:06:29.440 --> 00:06:33.360 hey, yes, you're right, it is working. Let me go work on this. We're not communicating back to them. 160 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:36.960 So in our minds, we could be like, oh, I'm going to go fix the problem. That's really the thing 161 00:06:36.960 --> 00:06:41.920 that needs to happen. But we don't communicate that, hey, we are working on the problem. 162 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:46.800 It's a little bit of acknowledgement of like, hey, you're right, we're on it. That's a great 163 00:06:46.880 --> 00:06:51.680 one-line email that goes a long way for our clients. Like checking in on this dot, dot, 164 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:57.280 dot send. You could literally buy yourself so much time and so much trust just with that. 165 00:06:57.280 --> 00:07:00.160 Just that they know that they got it. Because in their minds, they're like working, working, 166 00:07:00.160 --> 00:07:03.920 working. I've got this other thing to deal with. This is now a reactive problem that's popped up 167 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:09.520 into my business. And now they have to go deal with this thing. And so if they're like, cool, 168 00:07:09.520 --> 00:07:13.440 this team's got it, then it's kind of like off their mind and then go do something else, right? 169 00:07:13.440 --> 00:07:17.280 If you don't say anything, if we don't have that immediate acknowledgement, 170 00:07:17.280 --> 00:07:20.480 but just it's like, did they get it? I don't know. Maybe they did get it. 171 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:23.840 And then the worst thing is if we did get it and we are working on it, and then 172 00:07:26.880 --> 00:07:30.560 they don't know if we've got stuff necessarily. So they know that, hey, if we are working on it, 173 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:36.000 we're telling them. If we're not, then they need to keep texting or calling or whatever. 174 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:41.600 So just saying like, the thing here is not to say like, hey, a little bug happened. I'm really 175 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:46.240 sorry. We're going to fix it real quick. Don't downplay it just to make them happy and get them 176 00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:51.120 to nod their head. Like, okay, cool. It's not a big deal. Actually like, hey, we think we broke 177 00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:55.120 everything. We're going to come back and we're going to fix it. Just be super honest about what 178 00:07:55.120 --> 00:08:01.280 it is. Because these things are going to happen. This happened to, in my opinion, one of the most 179 00:08:01.280 --> 00:08:07.440 senior people, person on our team had this happen, this recent project. And it's going to happen. 180 00:08:07.440 --> 00:08:13.600 And so it's not that mistakes will get made, things will get pushed out, bugs will happen, 181 00:08:14.320 --> 00:08:18.720 but just being able to own it very quickly and let people know that you got it will go a long, 182 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:22.720 long way. Okay, cool. So that's building trust. It's the first reason why this matters. 183 00:08:22.720 --> 00:08:26.960 Second thing is that communication is really the tip of the spear. So if we have clear 184 00:08:26.960 --> 00:08:31.680 communication, think of it like a kind of a pyramid. If this top part is super sharp and 185 00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:36.799 super clear and concise, it just means that all of that other work has been done. The framing has 186 00:08:36.799 --> 00:08:41.679 been done. The shaping has been done. If we have more than one person communicating on a project, 187 00:08:41.679 --> 00:08:46.400 they're talking to each other and they're getting clear about what has to happen, what the deadlines 188 00:08:46.400 --> 00:08:50.880 are, where are the mistakes, where are the blockages. So when we go and we send a super 189 00:08:50.880 --> 00:08:58.400 concise email or we have a really crisp call, it just helps build that trust because it seems like, 190 00:08:58.400 --> 00:09:02.000 hey, if they're super clear about these things, it means that all this other stuff underneath 191 00:09:02.080 --> 00:09:09.440 is clear. It's really quick to identify when things are not clear in the project. 192 00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:13.680 And I think we're all learning this, diving deeper into shape up, into framing. It's like, 193 00:09:13.680 --> 00:09:19.200 if this doesn't feel super concrete and crisp, because once it is crisp and it's concrete, 194 00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:24.720 it's easy to take that really solid piece of truth and knowledge about the project and just 195 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:30.240 give it to the client and be like, hey, guess what? Your API doesn't do this or Shopify's API 196 00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:35.280 doesn't do that. We can't make the thing you want happen. It doesn't matter if we have six 197 00:09:35.280 --> 00:09:39.280 weeks or one week, it's not going to happen. So we need to have some trade-offs. How are we going 198 00:09:39.280 --> 00:09:43.200 to work around this thing together? Not just, oh, the client wants this thing. Oh my gosh, 199 00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:47.680 let's run around and hack stuff together until they're happy. If we dig deep enough and we're 200 00:09:47.680 --> 00:09:52.000 like, no, this is right here is a limitation and we've figured that out, we can surface that thing 201 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:57.120 to the top. And it just shows that when they get that little report, that little communication from 202 00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:00.080 us, that everything else underneath it is sitting there. 203 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:04.320 So the framing, the shaping, the communication internally in the team is 204 00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:07.040 flowing, is flowing well, and it just shows that we have a handle on it. 205 00:10:07.380 --> 00:10:09.900 It's like, if we tell them like, Hey, we're on time, we're on budget. 206 00:10:10.140 --> 00:10:13.020 That's kind of all they need to know is most for most clients. 207 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:16.300 Again, they're, they're, they've got so many other projects going on. 208 00:10:16.340 --> 00:10:17.600 This is the only thing we're doing. 209 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:21.260 So just letting them know, like big picture, we're on time on budget. 210 00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:24.980 And if we can show things like, Hey, yeah, we're, we're, we're 60 hours here. 211 00:10:24.980 --> 00:10:26.300 We've done this, this is where we're at. 212 00:10:26.820 --> 00:10:29.900 They don't care that it's 60 hours or 10 or a hundred. 213 00:10:30.180 --> 00:10:32.620 It's like, it just shows that like, we're tracking it. 214 00:10:32.660 --> 00:10:35.620 Like, as long as we're tracking and we're on it, clients will 215 00:10:35.620 --> 00:10:37.780 give you so much, like trust on that. 216 00:10:37.780 --> 00:10:41.720 So like, it's when you, like, when I was growing up, my parents were like, you 217 00:10:41.720 --> 00:10:43.640 can have as much trust as you can earn. 218 00:10:43.700 --> 00:10:47.180 So you could have a later curfew with when you're a teenager, 219 00:10:47.380 --> 00:10:48.840 if you built up that trust. 220 00:10:48.860 --> 00:10:52.540 And so soon as we broke that trust now, like the rules get worse, right. 221 00:10:52.800 --> 00:10:55.700 Then we get into micromanaging and all that bad stuff. 222 00:10:56.080 --> 00:10:59.700 And so what, what this does is as we build that, we kind of earn that 223 00:10:59.700 --> 00:11:03.020 trust or in that trust, and then they are going to ask less and less about it. 224 00:11:03.380 --> 00:11:07.140 And some of our biggest clients that we've worked with the longest, who have, 225 00:11:07.180 --> 00:11:10.900 who have spent the most with us, most time, most money with us there, they 226 00:11:10.900 --> 00:11:14.420 check on us the least and because they trust us, we're like, they know we got it. 227 00:11:14.540 --> 00:11:15.080 We're on it. 228 00:11:15.080 --> 00:11:16.180 We're running stuff for them. 229 00:11:16.620 --> 00:11:18.480 So that does build up into a lot of momentum. 230 00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:20.980 So first thing was communication built to trust. 231 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:24.380 Second is that it's kind of the tip of the spear of this, like kind of pyramid 232 00:11:24.540 --> 00:11:26.540 all the different pieces that make up a project. 233 00:11:26.860 --> 00:11:31.900 If that communication at the top is just super clear that that will go a long way. 234 00:11:32.600 --> 00:11:36.360 And then obviously, you know, there's the negative side, bad communication. 235 00:11:36.420 --> 00:11:38.780 It's going to, you know, the cost of having poor communication 236 00:11:38.780 --> 00:11:40.380 is, is really going to hurt us. 237 00:11:40.620 --> 00:11:42.660 It's because this stuff breaks down pretty fast. 238 00:11:42.660 --> 00:11:46.620 Like just think of if you have a relationship and someone does something 239 00:11:46.620 --> 00:11:52.100 that, that makes them lose trust in that person, like if we did like a home 240 00:11:52.100 --> 00:11:55.880 renovation project and we hired potentially the worst contractor in 241 00:11:55.880 --> 00:11:59.340 Atlanta to come work with us and he was, seemed great at the beginning. 242 00:11:59.340 --> 00:12:02.100 And then like a month in, like he would just not show up for a month 243 00:12:02.100 --> 00:12:03.080 and this thing would happen. 244 00:12:03.080 --> 00:12:03.700 Then he was like, cool. 245 00:12:03.700 --> 00:12:06.760 We're going to, you know, all of March, we're going to paint these three rooms. 246 00:12:06.760 --> 00:12:08.300 I was like, we were first time home builders. 247 00:12:08.300 --> 00:12:12.100 Like, I guess it takes three, like a full month to paint three rooms. 248 00:12:12.100 --> 00:12:13.720 Like not three days. 249 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:14.880 Like it should have been faster. 250 00:12:14.880 --> 00:12:19.280 We were just in there micromanaging and stuff just got like bad fast because 251 00:12:19.580 --> 00:12:23.380 the communication was so poor and just, you know, he would say like, Hey, 252 00:12:23.380 --> 00:12:24.440 we're going to do this by Monday. 253 00:12:24.440 --> 00:12:27.440 And then Monday would come and go and not even a text, not even a message, 254 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:30.380 not no sign of anything, those were the worst case scenario. 255 00:12:30.380 --> 00:12:35.560 So like I had one, one designer we worked with who helped us do all the 256 00:12:35.560 --> 00:12:38.600 Novo branding was just so good about this. 257 00:12:38.600 --> 00:12:41.500 And he was like, he would have it on his calendar and he would know like, Hey, 258 00:12:41.540 --> 00:12:45.360 I'm going to give you this mock-up on this date and this thing on this date. 259 00:12:45.700 --> 00:12:49.920 And then a few days before that happened or up to a week before deadline, he's 260 00:12:49.920 --> 00:12:52.960 like, he would reach out and be like, Hey Bruce, you know, I said on the 261 00:12:52.960 --> 00:12:56.740 Monday of the 17th, I would be ready with this, I've had to do this or 262 00:12:56.740 --> 00:12:58.180 this thing happened or a sick here. 263 00:12:58.340 --> 00:13:00.400 I'm just letting you know that in a week, it's actually going 264 00:13:00.400 --> 00:13:01.660 to be like three days later. 265 00:13:02.020 --> 00:13:06.080 I was like, I forgot we even had the first deadline, right? 266 00:13:06.080 --> 00:13:08.520 Like, and he's telling me like, Oh, it's going to just a couple of days or 267 00:13:08.520 --> 00:13:10.320 whatever I was like, okay, sure, man. 268 00:13:10.320 --> 00:13:10.740 That's great. 269 00:13:10.740 --> 00:13:12.160 Like, no problem. 270 00:13:12.540 --> 00:13:17.140 And so you don't have to like when, when the communication's good and when you 271 00:13:17.140 --> 00:13:20.000 have this, like you're kind of forward thinking of stuff, like you just, again, 272 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:23.700 it's building that trust, but it's, it's avoiding all that cost of the poor 273 00:13:23.700 --> 00:13:26.820 communication where it's going to like essentially come back and then it goes 274 00:13:26.820 --> 00:13:28.480 into a downward spiral fast. 275 00:13:28.480 --> 00:13:28.900 Okay. 276 00:13:29.140 --> 00:13:32.820 And then you get micromanaged and then you don't like it. 277 00:13:32.820 --> 00:13:33.640 The client hates it. 278 00:13:33.640 --> 00:13:34.720 And then just sort of like ends. 279 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:36.560 And then they're like, why did I ever want to build an app? 280 00:13:36.560 --> 00:13:38.300 This is why app developers are the worst. 281 00:13:38.620 --> 00:13:40.480 So it goes down, it goes down fast. 282 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:42.460 So kind of summary of like the, the reason. 283 00:13:42.460 --> 00:13:46.360 So the, the first section here was just sort of why we, why we do this? 284 00:13:46.640 --> 00:13:48.380 Why, why have good communication? 285 00:13:49.040 --> 00:13:52.920 We just want to be clear, build trust, tip of the spear, and there's avoiding 286 00:13:52.920 --> 00:13:54.300 all the poor communication piece. 287 00:13:54.300 --> 00:13:57.900 And I love this, that, that clients should know like what we're building. 288 00:13:58.140 --> 00:14:00.300 They should know why we're building and how it's going. 289 00:14:00.400 --> 00:14:04.260 So if we can articulate that, Hey, we're building this right now. 290 00:14:04.380 --> 00:14:05.320 Why is we doing this? 291 00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:08.920 Oh, remember we need to have like invoice component that helps you do this. 292 00:14:08.920 --> 00:14:09.500 What great. 293 00:14:09.500 --> 00:14:10.580 That's why we're doing it. 294 00:14:10.820 --> 00:14:11.540 And how's it going? 295 00:14:11.540 --> 00:14:15.420 Well, we're 30% through, we have these two big, you know, blocks 296 00:14:15.420 --> 00:14:16.620 knocked out in the task grid. 297 00:14:16.780 --> 00:14:19.160 We're working on these other two, you know, we have questions about 298 00:14:19.160 --> 00:14:20.860 this right here, very specific. 299 00:14:21.140 --> 00:14:24.520 So that's the thing though, what we're building, why and how it's going. 300 00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:27.680 I think that comes out actually out of a shape up or rework. 301 00:14:28.100 --> 00:14:28.660 So that's that. 302 00:14:28.660 --> 00:14:32.420 So in this next section, I just want to jump into email and then we'll come 303 00:14:32.420 --> 00:14:33.600 back and we'll talk about each of these. 304 00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:36.900 I'd love to get your, all of your thoughts on it and share some 305 00:14:36.900 --> 00:14:38.440 other questions that can help. 306 00:14:38.800 --> 00:14:42.720 But for, for this, we're gonna talk a little bit through email communication 307 00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:45.440 and kind of the async communication here. 308 00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:47.160 And I've also, we've got some tools. 309 00:14:47.160 --> 00:14:51.000 So I'm going to dive into some of the shape up AI stuff that we have. 310 00:14:51.660 --> 00:14:55.720 And so async of course, just means we're doing asynchronously. 311 00:14:55.800 --> 00:14:57.920 This is sort of the way that we work as a team. 312 00:14:57.960 --> 00:14:59.800 We do work asynchronously. 313 00:14:59.800 --> 00:15:00.040 It means. 314 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:03.160 If you're in the code, we're doing stuff, if there's certain problems 315 00:15:03.160 --> 00:15:05.760 that just need to be solved, you know, that's a great time to use 316 00:15:05.820 --> 00:15:07.020 jumping on a call with someone. 317 00:15:07.320 --> 00:15:10.080 I'd say things like framing, right. 318 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:13.980 Framing shaping type calls where we're just still unsure. 319 00:15:13.980 --> 00:15:15.340 It's not super clear yet. 320 00:15:15.600 --> 00:15:16.660 That's where we're on a call. 321 00:15:16.660 --> 00:15:18.820 And ideally it's with the client as well. 322 00:15:19.480 --> 00:15:22.980 So this is where kind of the two sides of, we've got email, which 323 00:15:22.980 --> 00:15:25.780 can be asynchronous and we're gonna have live calls as well, which is 324 00:15:25.780 --> 00:15:29.060 going to be where we're doing like framing, shaping, and, and doing 325 00:15:29.060 --> 00:15:32.720 kind of problem solving, so there's these two, two sides to this. 326 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:34.480 That is very, very clear. 327 00:15:34.480 --> 00:15:36.860 And when I say email, I'm thinking Slack as well. 328 00:15:37.100 --> 00:15:39.800 Email just is better. 329 00:15:39.860 --> 00:15:41.920 Like it's just so much better in so many ways. 330 00:15:41.920 --> 00:15:46.980 I'm like, you know, like this is my old man, like preach here is like email 331 00:15:46.980 --> 00:15:49.220 still the grandfather of all communication. 332 00:15:49.220 --> 00:15:50.280 It's been around forever. 333 00:15:50.280 --> 00:15:51.520 It's going to be around forever. 334 00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:56.640 I think, and Slack is great, but as you guys know, like it gets chaotic fast. 335 00:15:56.640 --> 00:16:00.240 And so the, the beauty of a, an email thread where things are replied and 336 00:16:00.240 --> 00:16:03.680 everything's kind of organized in this one thread, and then we can kind of close 337 00:16:03.680 --> 00:16:08.520 that and start a new thread in an email, loop people in quickly, see context. 338 00:16:08.520 --> 00:16:10.720 It's just, there's a lot of things that are really great about it. 339 00:16:11.260 --> 00:16:15.620 And it creates this a little bit more of like a publication to the client. 340 00:16:15.620 --> 00:16:19.000 So we're saying like, Hey, here's a little update and we publish it. 341 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:23.100 It creates a log that's there permanently, like emails are kind of 342 00:16:23.100 --> 00:16:26.660 there forever in your, in your inbox and they're in your client's inbox. 343 00:16:26.660 --> 00:16:28.500 So we do that. 344 00:16:28.500 --> 00:16:31.920 Even if we're, even if clients are, I have, we have some clients who don't 345 00:16:31.920 --> 00:16:35.720 ever use email for anything and, and they love text and they'll 346 00:16:35.720 --> 00:16:37.020 just text things back and forth. 347 00:16:37.020 --> 00:16:41.340 We've, we've signed multi-year agreements by texting back and forth 348 00:16:41.780 --> 00:16:46.340 terms of a contract and that client, of course, it's not necessarily 349 00:16:46.340 --> 00:16:47.740 in their email every day. 350 00:16:48.140 --> 00:16:50.860 And so what we do is we still send the update. 351 00:16:50.860 --> 00:16:52.940 Hey, this is the update here. 352 00:16:53.060 --> 00:16:53.620 Boom, boom, boom. 353 00:16:53.660 --> 00:16:54.540 Here's the log. 354 00:16:54.780 --> 00:16:56.020 If they don't see it, that's fine. 355 00:16:56.020 --> 00:16:58.020 But it also creates a log for us. 356 00:16:58.060 --> 00:17:02.300 If we ever have any confusion of, of, Hey, we're doing this, but they're not 357 00:17:02.300 --> 00:17:05.859 responding or we had a meeting, they didn't show up that little, those little 358 00:17:05.859 --> 00:17:10.200 things, it just, again, it's, it's us taking the lead on this and owning sort 359 00:17:10.200 --> 00:17:14.180 of like the, the relationship and, and taking the, and, and it's not that we 360 00:17:14.180 --> 00:17:18.660 want to like, Hey, like when, when this goes wrong and we're like, well, we 361 00:17:18.660 --> 00:17:20.740 told you this two weeks ago, like blah, blah, blah. 362 00:17:20.740 --> 00:17:22.900 It's, it's not so much that it's just more. 363 00:17:23.540 --> 00:17:25.980 Um, cause we, we want to have like a better relationship with clients 364 00:17:25.980 --> 00:17:28.660 where we're like beating them over the head with like that. 365 00:17:28.980 --> 00:17:29.860 We love our clients. 366 00:17:29.860 --> 00:17:30.300 We're working with them. 367 00:17:30.300 --> 00:17:31.060 We're partnering with them. 368 00:17:31.060 --> 00:17:34.860 So we're doing this as if we're there, you know, some of our best friends. 369 00:17:35.260 --> 00:17:38.780 And so we wouldn't do that to a best friend, but we do want to have like the 370 00:17:38.780 --> 00:17:38.980 log. 371 00:17:38.980 --> 00:17:42.940 So if they ever did look up or they saw it, they're like, it just, again, it 372 00:17:42.940 --> 00:17:47.580 kind of puts us in the lead leading role of this, where they're not the ones 373 00:17:47.580 --> 00:17:48.940 like, Hey, what's good. 374 00:17:48.940 --> 00:17:50.500 Like the worst thing is clients checking in. 375 00:17:50.500 --> 00:17:52.100 Hey, what's the status of X? 376 00:17:52.100 --> 00:17:53.700 Like, when can I use that? 377 00:17:53.900 --> 00:17:55.180 When is this thing going to be done? 378 00:17:55.620 --> 00:17:58.740 We, they have, should be having so many updates and it kind of the stream of 379 00:17:58.940 --> 00:18:02.780 communication from us that they don't have to think about that because they got 380 00:18:02.780 --> 00:18:05.460 an update two days ago and we said, Hey, Thursday. 381 00:18:05.700 --> 00:18:06.860 So they don't have to ask us. 382 00:18:07.020 --> 00:18:10.700 And so for this, like the ASIN communication, I say it's like kind of more 383 00:18:10.700 --> 00:18:15.660 of a stream of content, like, Hey, end of day, Tuesday, just let people know, Hey, 384 00:18:15.660 --> 00:18:18.380 we did these three things and make it super concise. 385 00:18:18.420 --> 00:18:20.260 We like to make it skimmable as well. 386 00:18:20.300 --> 00:18:22.940 So if you're doing an email, I'm kind of breaking it up. 387 00:18:22.940 --> 00:18:27.100 Don't, we don't have paragraphs of texts because you can't scan a paragraph, 388 00:18:27.420 --> 00:18:31.340 break text into like bullet points, use things like bolding text when 389 00:18:31.340 --> 00:18:32.860 you need to emphasize stuff. 390 00:18:33.180 --> 00:18:37.260 And if you really don't want them to miss something bold and market in red, 391 00:18:37.580 --> 00:18:41.020 if you want to be really fancy, you can use the Innovo red color, which 392 00:18:41.020 --> 00:18:42.980 I have like saved in my Mac mail. 393 00:18:43.340 --> 00:18:48.380 So you can have it even a branded color, but the essentially just have that as 394 00:18:48.380 --> 00:18:51.500 like, Hey, we can't move forward because of this, or, Hey, we're waiting for 395 00:18:51.500 --> 00:18:54.780 approval on this project before we can start working that type of thing. 396 00:18:54.780 --> 00:18:56.620 You just want to bold in red. 397 00:18:56.620 --> 00:18:57.780 Like they can open the email. 398 00:18:57.780 --> 00:19:01.220 If that's the one line they read and they close it, they got the essence of it. 399 00:19:01.260 --> 00:19:02.820 That's the main thing that's blocking them. 400 00:19:02.820 --> 00:19:05.780 Like we can't work on your thing until you give us an open 401 00:19:05.780 --> 00:19:07.300 AI account to work on. 402 00:19:07.380 --> 00:19:07.740 Right. 403 00:19:07.740 --> 00:19:08.620 That type of thing. 404 00:19:08.940 --> 00:19:12.780 They should just know that this is what is, what we tend to do is like, what's 405 00:19:12.780 --> 00:19:17.660 not actually as helpful is like this one mega updates where now the big update, 406 00:19:17.660 --> 00:19:19.180 like once a week is fine. 407 00:19:19.260 --> 00:19:20.020 That's great. 408 00:19:20.300 --> 00:19:24.220 But what tends to happen is we've done so much work that like now there's 12, 15 409 00:19:24.220 --> 00:19:27.220 bullet points and now people like open it and they're just like, well, that looks 410 00:19:27.220 --> 00:19:29.740 like a lot and they close it right now. 411 00:19:29.740 --> 00:19:32.740 I know they, some clients care about this and they really want to go through the 412 00:19:32.740 --> 00:19:37.220 details of it and they might do that, but it's actually better if we kind of do it 413 00:19:37.220 --> 00:19:41.500 in bite-sized pieces and that's actually easier for them to digest than to send 414 00:19:41.500 --> 00:19:43.820 this massive, like mega update over. 415 00:19:44.180 --> 00:19:48.220 And so shorter updates more often is better than just sort 416 00:19:48.220 --> 00:19:50.420 of one massive update weekly. 417 00:19:51.100 --> 00:19:55.460 And so now one thing you can use one tool here is the, the shape up. 418 00:19:55.500 --> 00:19:57.820 So I'm going to see if I can share this. 419 00:19:58.700 --> 00:19:59.220 There we go. 420 00:19:59.580 --> 00:20:00.060 And so. 421 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:02.640 So this is the shape up GPT here. 422 00:20:02.980 --> 00:20:07.620 And so you can go here and one of the updates here is to prep a client update. 423 00:20:08.040 --> 00:20:12.340 And so I had, I think we had something from Luchin actually, 424 00:20:12.340 --> 00:20:13.340 I'm just going to pull this in. 425 00:20:13.820 --> 00:20:15.900 Let's see, archived, let me grab this. 426 00:20:17.580 --> 00:20:19.380 And so Luchin did this whole little update. 427 00:20:19.380 --> 00:20:23.400 I'm just going to copy this and paste it and just, so we can just say something 428 00:20:23.400 --> 00:20:26.040 like write a client update email. 429 00:20:26.140 --> 00:20:30.120 And I'm just going to paste all of this from here into this. 430 00:20:31.920 --> 00:20:33.960 And this was just a whole thing. 431 00:20:34.080 --> 00:20:34.540 That's going to go. 432 00:20:34.540 --> 00:20:37.920 Now, one thing that we're doing here is I'm putting a lot of this into practice. 433 00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:43.040 And so what it's done here is it's, it's, it's got a great subject for us. 434 00:20:43.100 --> 00:20:44.380 And then sort of the format here. 435 00:20:44.380 --> 00:20:47.960 So it also knows that it's Veritas and it knows that Chris is in charge of that. 436 00:20:47.960 --> 00:20:50.040 So it said, Hey, comma team. 437 00:20:50.100 --> 00:20:52.120 That's a, just a nice way to start. 438 00:20:52.460 --> 00:20:53.760 Here's an app shop where we stand today. 439 00:20:53.820 --> 00:20:54.060 Boom. 440 00:20:54.060 --> 00:20:56.600 That's the email right there that we want to send. 441 00:20:57.080 --> 00:20:59.820 That's, that's, we don't do a bunch of stuff. 442 00:20:59.820 --> 00:21:01.920 And then at the end, like, Hey, and also, can we meet? 443 00:21:02.320 --> 00:21:03.240 Cause that will get lost. 444 00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:05.720 So what you could say is like, Hey, here's an app show where we stand today. 445 00:21:05.880 --> 00:21:07.960 I'd like to meet next Tuesday at 2 PM. 446 00:21:08.140 --> 00:21:09.640 That's sort of the essence of the email. 447 00:21:10.020 --> 00:21:13.440 Then I always do like an end dash, you know, line or something. 448 00:21:13.440 --> 00:21:15.240 And then you can get into all the cool stuff. 449 00:21:15.240 --> 00:21:18.960 Right now, this is quite elaborate, but what it is doing here, one of the 450 00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:22.760 conditions that this has is to not make it techie. 451 00:21:23.060 --> 00:21:26.180 So what it's doing here is Hey, like while resolving this discovered 452 00:21:26.220 --> 00:21:28.980 additional architectural problems, affecting event handling. 453 00:21:29.260 --> 00:21:31.580 Now it kind of gets into like some specifics here and we 454 00:21:31.580 --> 00:21:33.200 could probably boil this down. 455 00:21:33.340 --> 00:21:35.660 I'm not saying you should copy and paste and send this, but 456 00:21:35.660 --> 00:21:37.380 this is a, this is 80% there. 457 00:21:37.740 --> 00:21:38.720 It's, it's pretty good. 458 00:21:39.040 --> 00:21:41.260 And so I don't even know what this update is, by the way. 459 00:21:41.260 --> 00:21:41.900 I just copied him. 460 00:21:41.940 --> 00:21:43.940 I mean, I mean, I read, I skimmed it, right. 461 00:21:44.180 --> 00:21:47.240 Just like the clients would have skimmed it, but this kind of breaks it into 462 00:21:47.300 --> 00:21:50.160 specifics of, cause they're going to read this and be like, Hey, we're 463 00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:51.580 cleaning up something here. 464 00:21:51.880 --> 00:21:54.840 We've got like a draft of how we think this thing should work. 465 00:21:55.040 --> 00:21:56.640 Here's some, our recommendations. 466 00:21:56.640 --> 00:21:59.240 And then there's some other thing about video or whatever. 467 00:21:59.440 --> 00:22:01.160 So we can kind of clean this up. 468 00:22:01.160 --> 00:22:03.040 We can make it better if we need to. 469 00:22:03.720 --> 00:22:09.720 And I can also say like, make it more concise or here and less techie. 470 00:22:10.320 --> 00:22:14.360 So you could give it very kind of short feedback like that. 471 00:22:14.360 --> 00:22:15.600 Like this feels long. 472 00:22:15.600 --> 00:22:15.880 Cool. 473 00:22:15.880 --> 00:22:17.220 Like tell it to make it shorter. 474 00:22:17.680 --> 00:22:19.640 So this is already just feels lighter weight. 475 00:22:19.860 --> 00:22:22.580 I'm going by like, I'm just opening, kind of just skimming it. 476 00:22:22.580 --> 00:22:22.740 Right. 477 00:22:22.740 --> 00:22:25.620 Like I'm not reading every word here for you, but, but client, this is 478 00:22:25.620 --> 00:22:27.380 how clients are going to open the email. 479 00:22:27.740 --> 00:22:30.420 Cause they're going to open it and just see things like two or three 480 00:22:30.420 --> 00:22:31.820 bullet points feels easy. 481 00:22:31.820 --> 00:22:32.940 I could probably read that. 482 00:22:33.380 --> 00:22:35.820 And then I kind of go through here and of course check what it's saying. 483 00:22:35.820 --> 00:22:38.460 Cause it will just, you know, it's trying to interpret the best it can. 484 00:22:38.900 --> 00:22:43.500 It does have the context of the client and you can say, this is, I don't think 485 00:22:43.500 --> 00:22:48.660 I said that at the beginning, but I think if we said that it may tie it just a 486 00:22:48.660 --> 00:22:51.400 little bit better yet, I'm not sure exactly what it might do. 487 00:22:51.400 --> 00:22:51.600 Yeah. 488 00:22:51.600 --> 00:22:52.280 It said help. 489 00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:55.440 This is just mentioned the client there, but that does give it context 490 00:22:55.440 --> 00:22:58.400 for a bunch of transcripts we've uploaded for this client. 491 00:22:58.800 --> 00:23:02.460 And so if you can tell what the client name, it definitely, definitely helps. 492 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:08.600 So I use this because what we're doing, like we're moving pretty quickly as 493 00:23:08.600 --> 00:23:13.560 far as how all of our, how like we're evolving as a company, a lot is going 494 00:23:13.560 --> 00:23:19.180 to be helpful if we can load into this GPT, a lot of the knowledge so that 495 00:23:19.220 --> 00:23:23.940 instead of, you know, me, like we can all help train you guys on like how to 496 00:23:23.940 --> 00:23:26.980 write better and the only way you're all going to get good at it is just doing 497 00:23:26.980 --> 00:23:29.100 it for a long, long time and just doing them. 498 00:23:29.100 --> 00:23:32.860 So a couple of ways we can like practice emails, one, drop them in 499 00:23:32.860 --> 00:23:34.460 here, that's like your first tool. 500 00:23:34.500 --> 00:23:38.100 This is like your, obviously your, your infinitely positive assistant 501 00:23:38.100 --> 00:23:39.220 that can help you with everything. 502 00:23:39.220 --> 00:23:41.140 It's going to be this, this shape of AI. 503 00:23:41.480 --> 00:23:43.720 And then other thing you can do is like use team members. 504 00:23:44.040 --> 00:23:47.440 This does not mean like we write the updates and I just send it to Bruce 505 00:23:47.440 --> 00:23:49.040 and be like, can you send this to the client? 506 00:23:49.120 --> 00:23:49.640 No, no, no, no. 507 00:23:49.660 --> 00:23:53.080 Like all of you guys at the developer level are talking directly to the client. 508 00:23:53.080 --> 00:23:55.040 That's, that's how we should do communication. 509 00:23:55.480 --> 00:23:57.640 What you can do is write the update. 510 00:23:58.040 --> 00:24:01.120 And instead of emailing to the client, email it to Bruce or email it to Chris 511 00:24:01.120 --> 00:24:04.000 or email it to someone else, another developer on the team and say like, 512 00:24:04.060 --> 00:24:05.920 what, like, what do you guys think of this? 513 00:24:06.320 --> 00:24:08.600 And that way we can tweak it, change the words. 514 00:24:08.600 --> 00:24:10.280 I can, we can reply back to it. 515 00:24:10.500 --> 00:24:11.660 We can drop it into Notion. 516 00:24:11.660 --> 00:24:14.380 We could comment and edit it in Notion first, whatever. 517 00:24:14.380 --> 00:24:18.540 But the idea is that you're practicing writing it from scratch or using the 518 00:24:18.580 --> 00:24:21.860 GPT to, to, to write it and get it kind of into our language. 519 00:24:21.860 --> 00:24:23.740 So it's already 80, 90% there. 520 00:24:24.180 --> 00:24:27.520 And so my first thing, if I can open it and immediately see, it's not that 521 00:24:27.520 --> 00:24:30.920 it's going to be like, did you run this, the shape of AI, because it's 522 00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:35.780 going to clean up and do a lot of the just simplification of the language. 523 00:24:36.140 --> 00:24:39.820 So those are some ways we can practice and get good at this and kind of getting 524 00:24:39.840 --> 00:24:44.280 like right to the point, one thing I've been telling this shape of GPT is like, 525 00:24:44.720 --> 00:24:48.520 don't use end dashes and don't, don't put like emojis on absolutely everything. 526 00:24:48.520 --> 00:24:51.960 It's like, these are the two things that just shows like, it's getting more and 527 00:24:51.960 --> 00:24:57.080 more obvious that you're leveraging AI for stuff when you've just way over using 528 00:24:57.080 --> 00:25:00.040 the emojis and, and then if you've, if somebody. 529 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:01.920 in the end dash, if you guys have heard that, 530 00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:04.640 that's like a telling sign that you're like, 531 00:25:04.640 --> 00:25:06.760 because most people don't write with an end dash. 532 00:25:06.760 --> 00:25:09.080 End dash is like those two dashed lines 533 00:25:09.080 --> 00:25:10.760 that become one long line. 534 00:25:10.760 --> 00:25:13.640 That's like a hyphen, but it's like extra long. 535 00:25:13.640 --> 00:25:16.600 And that's like something that ATs or AI agents 536 00:25:16.600 --> 00:25:17.440 use all the time. 537 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:19.020 And it's like a quick tell that they're using. 538 00:25:19.020 --> 00:25:22.280 So I've told it not to do that, but it does it all the time. 539 00:25:22.280 --> 00:25:24.360 So let me get back to that. 540 00:25:24.360 --> 00:25:27.640 I think that's everything on email. 541 00:25:27.680 --> 00:25:32.520 Kind of on the flip side is like the live stuff. 542 00:25:32.520 --> 00:25:34.720 So this live calls should really be used 543 00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:36.320 for like framing, shaping, 544 00:25:36.320 --> 00:25:39.080 and like solving a specific problem. 545 00:25:39.080 --> 00:25:42.200 What it's not gonna be good for is the feeling of like, 546 00:25:42.200 --> 00:25:44.280 this could have been an email, right? 547 00:25:44.280 --> 00:25:46.920 That's not like, that is a kind of a waste of time. 548 00:25:46.920 --> 00:25:51.360 If we're opening like a list of that email, for example, 549 00:25:51.360 --> 00:25:53.440 and then we're just reading through bullet points 550 00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:56.160 one at a time, that's just a quick way to kind of, 551 00:25:56.160 --> 00:25:57.720 again, lose some of the trust. 552 00:25:57.720 --> 00:25:59.520 It's like, cool, you called this meeting so that like, 553 00:25:59.520 --> 00:26:00.440 you're gonna read this to me. 554 00:26:00.440 --> 00:26:03.440 Like, couldn't you have like put it in an email? 555 00:26:03.440 --> 00:26:05.360 And some of it is not able to do that. 556 00:26:05.360 --> 00:26:08.000 Some of it needs to be, you know, 557 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:09.240 summarized and articulated. 558 00:26:09.240 --> 00:26:11.260 And that's where like a video could be very useful. 559 00:26:11.260 --> 00:26:14.360 If you have, you know, in those email updates, 560 00:26:14.360 --> 00:26:17.200 you could put a quick video that's two, three minutes, 561 00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:18.280 maybe it gets into details 562 00:26:18.280 --> 00:26:20.120 or some of the nuances of something. 563 00:26:20.120 --> 00:26:21.560 That's where you can use that update. 564 00:26:21.560 --> 00:26:23.280 And if they don't watch it and stuff, that's fine. 565 00:26:23.280 --> 00:26:25.380 This is like, we've shared it with them. 566 00:26:25.380 --> 00:26:26.980 That's how we can communicate. 567 00:26:26.980 --> 00:26:30.220 But one thing that we really want to value the most, 568 00:26:30.220 --> 00:26:33.100 and this is kind of to clients, but also internally, 569 00:26:33.100 --> 00:26:35.580 like if I got on a call and I just read, you know, 570 00:26:35.580 --> 00:26:37.220 all of the bullet points of like, 571 00:26:37.220 --> 00:26:38.940 what's going on with the team and the company, 572 00:26:38.940 --> 00:26:41.020 and this is the thing, tasks that need to be done, 573 00:26:41.020 --> 00:26:42.460 just like a waste of everybody's time, 574 00:26:42.460 --> 00:26:45.100 because it's a very inefficient way for me 575 00:26:45.100 --> 00:26:48.500 to just broadcast 20 things at you. 576 00:26:48.500 --> 00:26:50.400 Cause there's no way that you're gonna be able to like, 577 00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:53.140 talk to each specific thing or have the time to think about. 578 00:26:53.140 --> 00:26:56.820 You may not be in the mindset to be processing 579 00:26:56.820 --> 00:26:58.860 all these different tasks right now. 580 00:26:58.860 --> 00:27:01.860 So that's where I want to like, ideally, 581 00:27:01.860 --> 00:27:04.460 like if you need to do that and you need to get an update, 582 00:27:04.460 --> 00:27:06.180 send that like ahead of the meeting. 583 00:27:06.180 --> 00:27:08.140 So if we're meeting on Tuesday at two, 584 00:27:08.140 --> 00:27:10.420 by like Tuesday morning, an email goes out like, 585 00:27:10.420 --> 00:27:12.500 hey, here's the status of where we stand. 586 00:27:12.500 --> 00:27:14.220 But like, here's kind of what we want to accomplish 587 00:27:14.220 --> 00:27:15.040 on the meeting. 588 00:27:15.040 --> 00:27:16.980 We really need like to figure out, 589 00:27:16.980 --> 00:27:19.540 are we going left or right on this particular thing? 590 00:27:19.540 --> 00:27:22.660 We're, you know, in order to meet our appetite, 591 00:27:23.060 --> 00:27:25.900 in order to meet the schedule, we need to cut X and Y, 592 00:27:25.900 --> 00:27:27.980 or, you know, kind of bringing it back to like, 593 00:27:27.980 --> 00:27:30.580 hey, remember in the framing piece, we said this, 594 00:27:30.580 --> 00:27:32.280 now we've kind of gone down this rabbit hole, 595 00:27:32.280 --> 00:27:33.440 like let's come back. 596 00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:36.340 So using that to sort of help get clarity, 597 00:27:36.340 --> 00:27:40.220 help like solve a problem, make decisions together, 598 00:27:40.220 --> 00:27:41.420 kind of think through the best way forward. 599 00:27:41.420 --> 00:27:42.340 And this should happen the same. 600 00:27:42.340 --> 00:27:47.180 Like if we need to work in like connect as a team, 601 00:27:47.180 --> 00:27:50.240 the best use of our time as a team connecting 602 00:27:50.240 --> 00:27:53.160 is going to be on a live call to do things like framing, 603 00:27:53.160 --> 00:27:55.560 breadboarding, shaping, that stuff. 604 00:27:55.560 --> 00:27:58.080 And I saw Jason Freed tweeted about this, 605 00:27:58.080 --> 00:27:59.520 like a few months back, but he's like, 606 00:27:59.520 --> 00:28:01.920 he said he's at the point where he doesn't think 607 00:28:01.920 --> 00:28:05.340 that shaping can be done asynchronously. 608 00:28:05.340 --> 00:28:08.440 Like it has to be done live with people like that. 609 00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:11.880 I think that's very powerful because you get to kind of 610 00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:14.280 hit things from different angles and quickly whittle down 611 00:28:14.280 --> 00:28:16.620 like what actually has to get done. 612 00:28:16.620 --> 00:28:19.360 So a lot of this also goes very well 613 00:28:19.600 --> 00:28:21.560 if we've really framed the project well, 614 00:28:21.560 --> 00:28:23.340 if we really shaped the project well, 615 00:28:23.340 --> 00:28:25.860 the emails get easier, the calls get easier, 616 00:28:25.860 --> 00:28:27.600 like everything's a lot smoother. 617 00:28:27.600 --> 00:28:31.140 So how we start that project just as hard as we can 618 00:28:31.140 --> 00:28:32.280 with like, here's the frame, 619 00:28:32.280 --> 00:28:34.400 here's the things that, here's the problems that we want, 620 00:28:34.400 --> 00:28:35.240 here's the outcome, 621 00:28:35.240 --> 00:28:37.880 here's the things we're not doing in this project, 622 00:28:37.880 --> 00:28:40.560 using that new template that Ryan gave us, 623 00:28:40.560 --> 00:28:42.480 that's gonna just make all this communication 624 00:28:42.480 --> 00:28:45.360 so much easier as we dive deeper into it. 625 00:28:45.360 --> 00:28:46.800 So getting into the meeting, 626 00:28:46.800 --> 00:28:48.520 basically just first thing is like, 627 00:28:48.520 --> 00:28:50.000 can we delete this meeting? 628 00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:51.040 Can I cancel this meeting? 629 00:28:51.040 --> 00:28:52.720 Would be like the first thing you're like, 630 00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:55.120 no, we really need to do this because we can't, 631 00:28:55.120 --> 00:28:58.180 we're unclear about this and we need to dig in. 632 00:28:58.180 --> 00:29:01.040 And it's less like there's a question. 633 00:29:01.040 --> 00:29:03.580 I think when these sort of group team meetings 634 00:29:03.580 --> 00:29:05.120 where like there's two or three people from the client, 635 00:29:05.120 --> 00:29:07.920 there's two of us and we're all coming together, 636 00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:11.320 that's an even more of a reason to just 637 00:29:11.320 --> 00:29:12.880 be extremely articulate with like, 638 00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:14.640 what are we actually accomplishing here? 639 00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:16.680 Because we're using a lot of different people's time. 640 00:29:16.680 --> 00:29:18.000 If there's a confusion about like 641 00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:19.700 one process in their business, 642 00:29:19.700 --> 00:29:23.440 that's a one-to-one call or email back and forth 643 00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:26.000 that can happen outside of that. 644 00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:27.600 We don't wanna get onto the call 645 00:29:27.600 --> 00:29:28.840 because this is what happens. 646 00:29:28.840 --> 00:29:30.400 Like we talked to someone on the team, 647 00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:32.160 we're like, hey, we just wanted you to clarify this. 648 00:29:32.160 --> 00:29:34.960 The problem is, is that like other people on the call 649 00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:36.760 are listening and watching this communication. 650 00:29:36.760 --> 00:29:40.240 They're like, why are we taking five minutes of this call 651 00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:42.120 to now like deal with that thing? 652 00:29:42.120 --> 00:29:43.580 Why couldn't they just have had an email 653 00:29:43.580 --> 00:29:44.420 or they have a call? 654 00:29:44.420 --> 00:29:45.360 Like, what am I doing here? 655 00:29:45.360 --> 00:29:46.720 This is a waste of time. 656 00:29:46.720 --> 00:29:48.640 And now we've like, we've lost some trust in that. 657 00:29:48.640 --> 00:29:50.820 So it can seem positive, like, hey, 658 00:29:50.820 --> 00:29:51.840 we really wanna know what this is, 659 00:29:51.840 --> 00:29:53.400 how this works in your business, 660 00:29:53.400 --> 00:29:55.640 but other people can interpret that as like, 661 00:29:55.640 --> 00:29:58.140 this is, you've kind of just lost some trust points 662 00:29:58.140 --> 00:29:59.960 because we actually need. 663 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.600 To be making sure we're using everybody's time efficiently in that in that in that call 664 00:30:04.600 --> 00:30:07.480 And so just be aware of those things as well 665 00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:12.520 Like don't bring things into that meeting that could have been an email or could have been a separate one-to-one call 666 00:30:12.760 --> 00:30:14.880 Where we are streaming. Hey, we ran into this problem 667 00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:20.880 But the other thing as well like letting time go by like hey last like if it's Tuesday and hey last Wednesday 668 00:30:20.880 --> 00:30:24.000 We got stuck on this thing. So we just wanted to ask you this question 669 00:30:24.800 --> 00:30:30.240 Things to never say on a call right like it should be hey, it is Wednesday this morning. We had this problem 670 00:30:30.240 --> 00:30:31.400 Can you clarify this for us? 671 00:30:31.400 --> 00:30:35.080 Boom, we're getting because now you've also just seen like if you got a founder on the call 672 00:30:35.080 --> 00:30:36.600 Maybe he has a team member 673 00:30:36.600 --> 00:30:38.400 He's actually now like 674 00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:43.320 Kind of upset with his team member like why didn't you dig into this and get them their information that they need so we can 675 00:30:43.320 --> 00:30:48.480 kind of really like mess and then that person who's kind of our main contact is getting thrown under the bus and 676 00:30:48.840 --> 00:30:50.960 It just makes doesn't go well 677 00:30:50.960 --> 00:30:55.760 So the more we can just bring them into like not trying to cushion the problems is like hey today 678 00:30:55.760 --> 00:30:59.360 We have this problem. We were we were in a meeting and we were confused. Can you clarify this for us? 679 00:30:59.480 --> 00:31:06.800 Great solve that little problem plug it back into like whatever the shaping the breadboarding is, but don't we can like 680 00:31:07.680 --> 00:31:14.680 Inadvertently step into like trying to be useful trying to dig into their company now if there's like very specific 681 00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.120 Issues we're like it's directional and we kind of do need the founder and it's like hey 682 00:31:19.120 --> 00:31:21.120 Like they really want, you know 683 00:31:21.120 --> 00:31:25.840 We're sort of framing a big problems in their business and helping them identify like we're bottlenecks in the business 684 00:31:26.040 --> 00:31:30.920 That's a good time to have people in there that lots of different points of view. Hey, why does this hurt the business? 685 00:31:30.920 --> 00:31:33.440 Why does this particular friction right now hurt the business? 686 00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:39.680 Founders gonna have examples team members in there on their side are gonna have examples like that's where you can really get in and flesh 687 00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:44.920 Stuff out. But again, just that one-way stream communication like that's gonna be like a bad meeting 688 00:31:45.480 --> 00:31:51.560 Getting really practical jumping in for the first five minutes just open check personal check-in 689 00:31:51.600 --> 00:31:56.280 You don't have to ask about the weather or the game or like hey, is it cold there in Chicago? 690 00:31:56.280 --> 00:31:59.720 Like, you know that stuff that's like cheesy sales person stuff 691 00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:01.040 but 692 00:32:01.040 --> 00:32:07.360 We actually generally care about our clients like most of I'll say all of the clients not most all of our clients are good 693 00:32:07.360 --> 00:32:09.360 friends of mine at least that I've 694 00:32:09.480 --> 00:32:13.640 Know outside of working with them. And so there's only two things to talk about 695 00:32:13.960 --> 00:32:19.320 So as you guys are talking more to clients, like let's just you know, be a person like 696 00:32:19.840 --> 00:32:23.560 Human like hey, it's you know, just just ask questions 697 00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:28.600 You know and we're kind of just seeing like where people are at if you don't have anything that's like social 698 00:32:28.600 --> 00:32:32.880 You're like, oh, I don't this is like freaking me out to have to be social for a few minutes and feels really awkward 699 00:32:33.240 --> 00:32:38.140 Like just kind of check in on things. Hey, did you guys like you got that email like last week? 700 00:32:38.200 --> 00:32:39.800 Do you guys have any thoughts on that? 701 00:32:39.800 --> 00:32:42.680 Because you're getting them to sort of open up a little bit one 702 00:32:42.680 --> 00:32:46.440 They're changing modes from the other 50 things they were doing today to like this one thing 703 00:32:46.440 --> 00:32:50.680 That's on their list and they're just trying to so you're trying to get them to kind of see where they're at 704 00:32:51.120 --> 00:32:56.520 We're also trying to see like we're kind of take the temperature of the room like hey, this is amazing 705 00:32:56.520 --> 00:32:58.600 Well done guys. You guys are crushing it right now 706 00:32:58.600 --> 00:33:04.600 Like let's let's hear that feedback kind of in those early first few minutes and then kind of pivot it into that 707 00:33:04.760 --> 00:33:06.400 To where we're saying, okay 708 00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:11.760 So today we're gonna be doing this like super clear like hey today successful for you accomplish X together 709 00:33:11.760 --> 00:33:13.840 And then you can also say hey 710 00:33:13.840 --> 00:33:19.360 If is this the right set of Pete like as you can ask the founder if there's a big number of people 711 00:33:19.640 --> 00:33:24.200 To say like hey if this is useful or if we have the right people here to solve this one problem 712 00:33:24.760 --> 00:33:30.120 Great, and you can also do this ahead in an email, but especially in the first few minutes basically give people a 713 00:33:30.560 --> 00:33:34.680 An offer an off-ramp out of the meeting in the first few minutes like hey 714 00:33:34.680 --> 00:33:38.160 We talked that we're actually gonna be talking this if you guys don't need to be here 715 00:33:38.160 --> 00:33:44.360 This is not like your specific area like feel free to drop off and that's a great way to just make sure that hey 716 00:33:44.360 --> 00:33:44.520 Yeah 717 00:33:44.520 --> 00:33:47.080 who's here's like the really the key decision makers of 718 00:33:47.280 --> 00:33:52.320 Who needs to be here because again, it's extremely expensive to have a meeting just on people's time 719 00:33:52.440 --> 00:33:56.280 You know just think like from a founder standpoint 720 00:33:56.280 --> 00:34:01.080 They're paying some of the people if they're paying them as a freelancer hourly if they're paying them salary like there 721 00:34:01.080 --> 00:34:06.600 This is this meeting costs money to happen. It's not just the time is extremely valuable 722 00:34:06.600 --> 00:34:11.560 So just make sure it's super clear front and then start on time and on time 723 00:34:11.560 --> 00:34:15.639 So like what I'd love to do is like if you can start the zoom call a few minutes early 724 00:34:15.880 --> 00:34:18.080 Like on this call that we're doing right now 725 00:34:18.080 --> 00:34:21.800 Like I would turned it on 10 minutes early just so people could kind of hang out 726 00:34:21.800 --> 00:34:24.480 I had all the tech done the lights done. Everything's like ready to go 727 00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:28.639 So when you guys jumped on I was just already just letting people in and we could run it 728 00:34:28.639 --> 00:34:29.880 It's good and go 729 00:34:29.880 --> 00:34:31.880 the other thing is like if there's 730 00:34:31.960 --> 00:34:36.239 Still questions or if there's two of you guys meeting and you're both working with the client 731 00:34:36.360 --> 00:34:41.600 Definitely recommend get jumping on together like 10 minutes early and just hey today. I think we're gonna talk through these 732 00:34:41.600 --> 00:34:43.880 Hey, I did this happen that that happened clarify stuff 733 00:34:43.880 --> 00:34:49.159 That's a much easier way if there is more than one person on a team before you go into a client call 734 00:34:49.600 --> 00:34:51.080 Just that 10-15 minutes 735 00:34:51.080 --> 00:34:57.160 you just come in super sharp like and and you're also in the mindset if we're working on two different projects and then you just 736 00:34:57.160 --> 00:35:00.160 Changed modes helps your brain just like reset a little 737 00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.400 little bit and get the context switching down and then just, you know, when that 738 00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:09.720 time comes up, just acknowledge it like, Hey, now I see we're coming up on time. 739 00:35:09.720 --> 00:35:12.320 So I want to make sure I just get that last little thing that you need 740 00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:13.960 done in the last five minutes. 741 00:35:14.240 --> 00:35:15.880 Had to see, we've got four or five minutes left. 742 00:35:16.120 --> 00:35:19.960 Can we make sure we just get this thing decided, or do we need to like extend 743 00:35:19.960 --> 00:35:24.300 this meeting or reschedule for another time, but most clients, if you know, can 744 00:35:24.300 --> 00:35:27.960 just blow through that meeting, but at least acknowledging it and saying, Hey, 745 00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:29.320 we are coming up on time. 746 00:35:29.760 --> 00:35:31.840 I just wanna make sure we get this done in those 30 minutes. 747 00:35:32.160 --> 00:35:35.040 You know, if that's, if it's a 30 minute call, cause if it needed to be a 45 748 00:35:35.040 --> 00:35:38.040 minute call or it needed to be a 90 minute call, that's kind of on us. 749 00:35:38.040 --> 00:35:39.760 Like it's going to be very hard. 750 00:35:39.760 --> 00:35:41.520 We're not going to frame things in 30 minutes. 751 00:35:41.520 --> 00:35:43.060 We're not going to shape anything in 30 minutes. 752 00:35:43.060 --> 00:35:46.560 Like this is an hour and a half minimum to get meaningful work done. 753 00:35:46.920 --> 00:35:50.200 So if we are framing or shaping with a client, like it needs to be a 90 minute 754 00:35:50.200 --> 00:35:54.040 call, I'd rather do a 90 minute call and finish in an hour or schedule an hour 755 00:35:54.040 --> 00:35:55.200 call and finish in 30 minutes. 756 00:35:55.200 --> 00:35:55.520 Right. 757 00:35:55.760 --> 00:36:00.400 So just ask for that time, kind of making sure that we acknowledge that because if 758 00:36:00.400 --> 00:36:03.960 we know, Hey, we can just get an insane amount done in those 30 minutes, people 759 00:36:03.960 --> 00:36:06.240 come back to that call because it was extremely efficient. 760 00:36:06.240 --> 00:36:07.360 We didn't waste their time. 761 00:36:07.720 --> 00:36:09.400 And they may say like, yeah, let's keep going. 762 00:36:09.400 --> 00:36:10.400 I I'm actually flexible. 763 00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:11.760 Let's go another five, 10 minutes. 764 00:36:12.040 --> 00:36:14.040 And then you can go over and that's totally fine. 765 00:36:14.400 --> 00:36:18.480 But again, it's just sort of that, just respect, respecting their time, expecting 766 00:36:18.480 --> 00:36:20.760 our team time as well is great. 767 00:36:21.200 --> 00:36:21.960 And there you go. 768 00:36:21.960 --> 00:36:27.120 So that's, that's pretty much everything on the email side, the live meeting. 769 00:36:27.120 --> 00:36:29.840 We kind of went through the overview stuff, so I'll kind of open 770 00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:31.740 it up to some questions here. 771 00:36:31.740 --> 00:36:33.000 We can do some more examples. 772 00:36:33.420 --> 00:36:36.880 I'd love to just kind of see where you guys are at and what you're thinking on this.