Leverage: Optimize, Automate, Outsource: Productivity Tips, Virtual Assistant Insights, Outsourcing, Life Hacks, And More

Leverage Podcast featuring Scott and Orlena Ballard, Leverage clients, partners at Confidence Coach and in life.   In this episode, Brittney Martinson, Head of Client Success at Leverage talks to Scott and Orlena Ballard about a unique task they’ve outsourced to Leverage: “Need a VA to made a dinner reservation every Thursday Night at 7:15pm for my wife and me”   At Confidence Coach, Scott and Orlena coach their clients on how to have success in their business - but also in your most important relationships. Married for 37 years, dating for 40 — Scott and Orlena know that their marriage is their #1 priority in life and you need to put the work into it to make it last.   “You can have the greatest amount of success in a Business, but if you don’t have any personal relationships that are enriching, that are better, that are growing, that are deeper in love - what do you really have?” —Scott Ballard.   Any success principles learned in business can be directly related into relationships, and vice versa.  In busi

DINA’S JOURNEY Before turning to meditation, Dina lived in the opposite world — the whirlwind of founding a tech company which raised $35mm in venture capital money and scaled to offices internationally. The start-up was called blip.tv, a platform for original shows, somewhat similar to an early version of YouTube. Her life quickly became meetings and conferences, hiring and firing and tough decisions about strategy and scaling and managing a P&L. She figured out the “job” part of her job. What she couldn’t figure out was how to be herself in that role…how to stay true to herself, as a feminine founder, in such a male-dominated company and industry. Dina thought she had to act “like a guy” to be as successful as the male entrepreneurs she was meeting at tech events, people like Peter Thiel and Larry and Sergei from Google. She wasn’t even sure how they acted at work but decided they were probably tough and worked around the clock. So she put on a tough exterior, worked constantly, and suppressed her true

Hilary Corna teaches leaders and teams how to solve problems more effectively. As former Senior Executive Officer for Toyota, she helped improve dealership operations for Toyota and ran all of their Kaizen projects for the Asia-Pac region, based out of its Singapore HQ. She is currently consulting for Leverage to implement Kaizen throughout the company and reshape its internal processes. She’s also bestselling author of One White Face, and a prominent writer and speaker featured on Forbes, TedX, the Muse, and more. WHAT IS KAIZEN? Kai = change Zen = for the better Therefore Kaizen translates to continuously improving a company — or more specifically its processes — for the better. The philosophy of Kaizen is deeply rooted in Toyota and the Japanese way of conducting business. It infiltrates all parts of the Toyota brand, and has quickly caught on in the US…sometimes taking on the form of popular buzzwords like Six Sigma or “Lean” business. Kaizen is important because it is proactive rather than reactive. Whi

Janet spends most of her time writing contracts and business strategies, but her biggest interest lies in first principles — how to find gaps that exist in a specific industry in order to capitalize on opportunities. Her method could’ve saved the taxi industry from being overtaken by Uber and even anticipated the massive success of AirBnB. Big claims, we know. But, if you can find the white space that exists within an industry, you can see where there’s opportunity or where competition might be looming. To start understanding her method, consider this question. Q: How many problems around the world do you think all businesses are solving? Keep in mind they are solving problems we don’t even think are problems during our daily routine like grabbing a bagel, drinking water, brushing teeth, transportation, etc. A: Only six problems. S-I-X! A business is solving 1 (or more) of these six problems: Who, what, where, when, how or why. THE SIX ROOT PROBLEMS These are called the ROOT problems, because every problem ca

Ryan’s background and primary focus is in wealth management, or how to properly manage your $ to make $. He is a Partner at Copperleaf Capital and co-founder of AE Wealth Management, valued over $4 billion in assets. Let’s just say Ryan knows what he’s doing. And he does it the right way. His focus is on staying in front of the industry. Rather than waiting for harsh regulations to determine what is “right” or “legally acceptable,” Ryan seeks to reduce conflicts of interest and promotes transparency in every aspect of the client relationship. WHAT IS THE CURRENT FORECAST? A good way to stay in front of the industry is to know what’s coming in the future. In his opinion, there is a looming crackdown on revenue sharing arrangements. What is revenue sharing? Let’s use this example. ABC financial is a BIG firm and they have a “preferred” provider list that they refer their clients to regularly. In order to get onto ABC financial’s list, they ask companies to pay a fee, sometimes millions in order to get top shelf

Kyle has worked with some of the best in the industry, from an early start with Google’s Chris Sacca and LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, to CEO’s and Boards of Directors at Fortune 500 brands like GAP and Old Navy. He spent the majority of his career in consumer goods and consumer products and services, working directly with the voice of consumers to lead product creation. His experience also stretches into tech, automation, platforms, and even government organizations. We call him the Kyle of all trades. This robust past led him to start his own company, Be Courageous, to help others learn how to be better leaders of their companies and make a lasting impact. According to Kyle, Be Courageous is all about the BREAKTHROUGHS. Breakthroughs in company culture (how to better your leaders and your team) Breakthroughs in strategy (how to get to the future — or where you want to be — faster and with focus) Breakthroughs in innovation (liberating possibilities and releasing virtuous products to the world in a unique way)

Voice Over: In this episode, we’re testing out our new webinar platform, Crowdcast. Check out this interview with Crowdcast developer and CEO, Sai Hossain and see how Crowdcast can streamline the webinar process for you. At Leverage we searched high and low for the ideal webinar platform, until we found Crowdcast…and we had to look no further. To kick-off our use of this new platform, we hosted a webinar about the platform, interviewing CEO Sai Hossain. Turns out, Sai has a background in development and the CEO actually built the very first version of the tool. Years ago while spending time in Costa Rica surrounded by meditators and yogis, he realized there were important messages that needed to be shared with the world but there wasn’t a proper platform that allowed the non “techies” ease of use to reach the masses. In his previous experiences with webinar platforms, the tools were designed for marketing tactics or for holding team meetings, with the perk of hosting a webinar on the side. However, Sai envisi

Voice Over: On this episode, our guest is Caya, CEO and cofounder of Slidebean. Slidebean is a cloud based presentation tool that makes creating well-crafted and well-designed slide decks simple and easy. Slidebean was a part of Start-Up Chile — one of the most important accelerators in Latin America, 500 Startups — one of the best US accelerators, named “3rd Most Valuable Internet Startup” in Costa Rica, and it was featured in TechCrunch. Etcetera, etcetera…the impressive list goes on. So what’s all the buzz about?   Au revoir Prezi and PowerPoint! Now anyone can make a high-end designer grade presentation without spending a lot of time and money on becoming–or hiring–a designer. One of Slidebean’s many pros is that it has an easy to use drag and drop feature which allows styling in one user-friendly click. The start of Slidebean. The founders of Slidebean are all graphic designers by trade. They noticed a big problem looming in the business world. Too many people were struggling to put together decent looki

Voice-over: On this episode, our guest is Clate Mask, CEO of InfusionSoft, a unique suite of tools that merges marketing strategy, CRM software and the power of automation in one simple package. Designed for small businesses, it’s the perfect marriage of convenience and customization for client communications that can save your business valuable time and money. We recently started the process of becoming an Infusionsoft partner. Even in the very beginning of our application we were pleasantly surprised to see a plethora of information and insights offered about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and its relationship to marketing efforts. Infusionsoft is — at its core — a CRM software. It is built specifically for small businesses to help organize each part of its client communications, in order to deliver better service to leads, prospects and current customers. At the heart of Infusionsoft, it is a CRM system. However, it has layers of aspects intertwined natively into its system to combine the tradition

A former digital ad agency exec turned entrepreneur, shares her tried and true techniques gleaned from her years in digital marketing. Now, as an entrepreneur, she’s adapted this experience into five steps that will help any small business build a solid social presence. Listen in and learn from our own Content and Strategy specialist how to plan, create, launch and grow your brand online without breaking the bank.   Social is now the foundation of any company’s digital footprint. With the digital landscape changing and evolving daily, trying to keep up can be a daunting process. Running a small business is enough of a struggle. And our very own Leverage Content and Strategy specialist, Ann Marie Almariei, has worked with many big brands to plan, create, launch, and grow their presence on the social landscape. When Ann Marie decided two years ago to take the next big step in her career to launch her own brand, her past experiences helped her realize how important her knowledge was — not only for her own compan

Financial App for Solopreneurs: Hurdlr Makes Accounting a Breeze View your profits and capture your deductions in real time with this App.   Enjoy this interview with Raj Bhaskar, CEO of Hurdlr, about how this app makes financial tracking for the self-employed freelancers of the world complete and easy. Hurdlr is dubbing this the “Financial App for Solopreneurs.” Long gone are the days of saving piles of receipts and sifting through them every tax season. Good riddance! So, if you’re an Uber or Taxi Driver Realtor Freelancer Contractor Airbnb Host Or any other type of self employed small business owner loving your freedom but hating the process of figuring out financials, this app might be a good fit for you. Two major and differentiating advantages of Hurdlr, according to its CEO are: Shows real time profit before tax Shows real time profit after tax The reason this is big news is because Hurdlr–unlike other apps–created its very own real time tax calculator to adjust for variation in taxes. This is real

Have you heard of the six steps of the ASK methodology for sales,  originally created by Ryan Levesque? Enjoy these highlights from a fascinating webinar with online marketing expert Jamie McKean, who has studied and implemented the ASK method extensively with his own business and clients. Listen in and see what using the ASK method can do for you. Before you dive into learning about the 6 Steps, scan your current website. Have you done your research? Meaning, do you know why people visit your website and what they want when they get there? Is your message, or your “ASK” (or what you want them to do) clear to the visitor, right away? If the visitor isn’t ready to “buy” just yet, are there other options for them to learn more? Eg: email optin, free download, etc? Is it simple? Do you speak in your industry lingo, or is your message crisp and clear in the language that your visitor will understand? Now that you have a general idea of areas where your online business could improve, we can dive into the ASK met

Let’s start with the basics. What IS a podcast? Everyone you ask might give a slightly different version of their idea of a podcast, and that is part of the problem. Most people think podcasts are important, or good to do for promoting their skills or business, but don’t know what it really is. According to Paul, “A podcast is simply Audio or Video that is made available Online for easy, on-demand consumption and/or subscription-based delivery.” Some people are so intimidated by the thought of podcasting, that they never even try to start. But chances are, if you are producing any type of consistent media, you are already on your way to forming a podcast. You can turn digital media into a podcast in four easy steps: Create digital media — if you’re new to podcasting, this doesn’t have to be a formal or high-tech endeavor. it can be anything digital, even as simple as recording yourself speaking into your phone. Put it online — no one will benefit from your digital content unless you put it online. The key i

When you’re camping in the forest, you need a walky-talky to communicate with your group, and you need a map to find your way. As we mentioned in our other posts, Slack is the walky-talky. It is a great tool for communications but in addition to the daily comms, your company is going to need its full roadmap…and that is where Trello comes in handy. To boost your productivity, you’ll need these three tools to cut down a large portion of your workload and make your work efforts effective. The three tools are: Properly use email (for external communications only) Use Slack for all internal communications Use Trello (or a similar management tool) for project management — we recommend Trello but others have great success with tools such as Asana. After implementing these tools you will drastically improve your ability to manage your company and your time. We’ve covered Inbox Zero and Slack in our previous posts and today we’ll walk through Trello. Trello is your map Trello shows you what project you’re working o

Zoom a simple tool Leverage uses to keep our online meetings productive. It’s easy to use and integrates with Slack and mobile devices too. We host most of our live meetings over Zoom and have nearly 200 team members across the world. When you’ve got over 100 people on a Zoom call (yeah it’s like the biggest Brady Bunch intro ever) things can get unruly if you don’t have an agenda. We’ve tried several different agenda tools and none of them ever fully did what we wanted, which meant they were never fully adopted. In the end we did what we often do, used someone in an “off-label” way. We tried using Cisco Spark Notes and while it has a Slack integration it’s still a separate web app and one more place to login, plus it isn’t mobile friendly. We really wanted to something that was in Slack to avoid having to switch around and add another tool. So for a while we were using the built-in option to create posts. They are basically mini blog posts that live in Slack. It worked pretty well, anyone could edit it and a

In this episode, we’ll look at how anyone can achieve the holy grail of productivity: Inbox zero. All it takes is a few simple steps and an email management app, like Inbox by Google, and you will never go back to your old system. Listen in as we walk you through the process now. Lately email is getting a really bad rap. You’ll see all sorts of blogs that say, “Don’t check your email! It’s a productivity killer! It only wastes your time!” And if you’re staring at an inbox with 3,7643 unread messages, it might be easy for you to agree. But what if we told you that 99% of the population uses email INCORRECTLY and you’re probably a part of that statistic. Truth-bomb: If you use email effectively, you can check it multiple times a day — even 10+ times a day if you want to — and it’s only going to help you get things done. Because now, your email is your to-do list and it should be your ONLY to-do list. Anything you see in your inbox you’re able to complete and move to done OR find the right place for it to follow

If you haven’t used this tool yet, start saving time by understanding how to make it work for your business. Zapier is the glue that joins two systems together, enabling you to extract and send info you need on command. It allows apps to “speak” to one another, and by visiting their website you’ll notice there’s more than 750 apps to choose from, which means if you’re looking to automate something — it’s more than likely a possibility. You may have heard of IFTTT IFTTT, or “If This, Then That”, is a simple, conditional commands tool similar to Zapier, but with Zap you get more integrations related to business and that is why we use it at Leverage and why we recommend it to our clients. With Zapier, you can easily build your own custom zaps or choose from their pre-made menu, which offers hundreds of options. For example, if you search “google calendar” you’ll see more than 100 suggestions for how to automate your calendar. You can choose to send a certain email every Monday, or even send a certain email every

Take a look at some of the tools Leverage uses to constantly optimize our service. We feel it’s our duty to to test and perfect these models in order to equip you — our clients and community — with the right information. Learn some of our tried and tested techniques to get the most out of popular tools like Slack, Trello and more. At Leverage, we aren’t just using and customizing the latest new tech, but are deeply exploring more efficient and clever ways to use what we have as effectively as possible. Each tool we use, whether it’s email or something like Slack or Trello, is only as good as the way we use it. Email can be a great tool, IF it is used effectively. Same rule applies to Slack. It can be one of your biggest productivity boosters, or productivity killers, if you let it. We are huge advocates for Slack and use it daily for keeping in touch with our team that spans across 16 different countries. Considering our heavy use and integrations, we would estimate that we were in the top 1% of users, yet we

How Intercom has reinvented the wheel when it comes to personalized communication with clients. Intercom is a communication tool + email automation + help center + shared inbox all rolled into a single platform. Learn how Leverage uses Intercom to make customized communication with clients simple and easy. Like all of the tools we use at Leverage, it’s not enough to just know about the tool. In order to really get the most out of any service, you need to customize the experience and use a developer to customize the way YOU need it to be used. At Leverage, we connect Intercom to our database, allowing us to receive details such as customer information, total revenue per client and a hub of internal notes on each person — all in one place. Intercom’s API makes it easy to customize your experience. With its Zapier integration, you can set up commands, such as tagging any client that reports an issue, automatically starting a checklist in Process Street for that issue, and automatically filling in a client’s nece

Process Street has been all the buzz around Leverage. We can’t stop talking about it — or using it. This tool has proven to be so useful that we are giving our members a free enterprise account for an entire year. Here’s a behind the scenes look at how Leverage is using this tool to transform our service. Leverage has already documented how we do every task in the form of an easy checklist in Process Street. Documenting has benefits such as reviewing your current way of doing things to notice areas of improvement and make your current process more efficient. But, it is also a great way to implement a brand new idea. Before launching the idea into action, you organize each step of the way and assign the appropriate team members to each part of the checklist. Recently we received a case study from our Head of Business Operations, Florence Bout. She told us how Leverage is using Process Street to create a brand new service offering for our members, to provide an easier and more positive user experience. Leverage