We all have our little tricks of the trade. Maybe it’s an amalgamation of pieces of advice you’ve taken from peers, bosses, or articles, or maybe it’s something you learned on this forum ;). However, I would love to hear what’s your warhorse?
What’s your trusty steed that you ride into battle (work) everyday? What’s the tool that you count on to carry you through?
Mine is Adobe Photoshop. I’ve been using it on and off since I was in 8th grade. I should probably be a little bit more advanced, but I can always count on the tool to allow me to synthesize thought, concept, and mostly anything else into a cohesive visual representation.
I look forward to hearing about your battle stories ;)!
Everyone loves Stripe for payment processing now-a-days. Problem is, it’s not as simple as plopping down a payment button (like PayPal). I’m constantly asked, how can I accept Stripe payments on my website. Here are 3 ways:
For a Wordpress website, a “simple” solution is:
WP Simple Pay for Stripe ( http://bit.ly/StripeOnWP ). Works for simple one-time payments and recurring payments. Does NOT work for length-based payment plans, though. You’ll also need an SSL certificate for your website.
The next solution is a hosted app. Because it’s hosted, you don’t have to worry about getting an SSL certificate.
SamCart ( http://bit.ly/trySamCart ). It’s a fully functioning cart application that handles all kinds of transactions and can even do one-click up-sells, down-sells, etc.
Finally, if you are considering a membership site, online course or monthly recurring productized service:
MemberMouse ( http://bit.ly/tryMemberMouse ). You can integrate MM deeply with AC using either Zapier with their Email Parser, or Fuzed App.
If you want to be able to take simple Stripe payments you can’t beat MoonClerk.com. Up and running with payment forms (on top of Stipe) in 5 minutes. No need worry about SSL as it runs via theirs. Handles recurring like a champ. Even gives the payer a link to go in and update their own details. Simple and quick. Bam!
I couldn’t pass up talking about Podio. We have been using it for about 9 months now and it has literally changed the way we work. Database come CRM com Project Management software… it keeps everyone on the same page & all of our work in one place.
We use it to track leads/sales
We use it for task/project management
We use it to plan all of our websites
We use it to plan all of our campaigns (see the topic here if you want a sneak peak of what that looks like)
We use it to chat & call each other
We use it to collaborate with our clients
All of our team stay on the one page and know what everyone is up to and where each of our projects are at. Plus it’s completely flexible and customisable to how you work.
I could go on and on and on and on (you get the point)… But it’s best you just check it out yourself (podio.com)
I’m not using Podio yet, but I do love it’s potential. Planning on a couple different productized services ideas, and Podio would be perfect for managing the Team and Client requests.
Trying to figure out the best way to integrate the Client requests in Wordpress behind a member wall (using MemberMouse), so that all requests automatically get pushed into Podio. Thinking Gravity Forms to Podio might be the solution.
Want to find a way to provide Client with task status without bringing them completely into Podio.
Hey @accountabilitysensei. Funny you should mention that… I’ve been thinking about a similar idea, some kind of client portal, where clients can login and lodge tickets, work requests, etc.
Podio actually has built in webforms for each of the apps that you install in a workpace, so you can just place the code on the page and the submissions go straight into Podio. (We use one here to grab website content from our clients: http://mavndigital.com.au/web-project-content-submission/)
Gravity forms is definitely an option too, if you have the developer license you can get the Gravity to Podio Add-On or always use Zapier.
We are a digital agency, so we use it to organise our team internally. I have four internal workspaces:
CRM - where we track all our open deals
Project Management - Track all our projects, tasks, timesheets, and team stuff
Website Workspace - Where we keep all the details of our website projects (logins, wireframes, mockups, content, dev tasks)
Inbound Workspace - Where we plan all our inbound marketing campaigns for clients (Social, Email, PPC, landing pges, etc).
Then for some of our ongoing clients we have specific workspaces we share with them - although this has been less successful, as getting a client to learn a new system takes some hard work. These days we tend to share individual items with them, rather than whole workspaces. Mostly for approvals and to keep communication lines open.
You might want to check out Globiflow as well, which is a Podio add on that ads MAJOR automation functionality. For instance, when a client submits a request you can get an automatic email sent to them. Or when the request status changes, you could alert them via email. There is a great tutorial on building a help desk with Podio and Globiflow here: http://www.globiflow.com/blog/a-simple-helpdesk-using-podio-and-globiflow.php
Hope thats helpful! Any other questions, feel free to reach out. I LOVE talking Podio with people lol!
I have been using Podio for several years and really liked its potential. However, a few months back I switched to Trello.
Trello does not have all those wonderful features, and that is exactly why I made the switch. I found that I spent too much time playing around in Podio configuring forms and workflows.
Oh, I know what you mean about playing around… I find myself doing that to. But I just can’t live without the structure and automation in Podio.
Seems alot of people are moving to Trello at the moment, every second person I speak to has discovered it. It has some really great features that I miss in Podio (checklists for one!!).
I use Teamwork as much of my work is around execution and is very good for project management. Tasks, for examples, support sub-tasks (very useful) and you can create template task lists for those jobs that follow the same process.
They have recently launched a Help Desk function that intergrates seamlessly with the PM one. Which means you can accept and manage request for jobs, support, etc… via the Help Desk and, when the work is more than a simple reply, you can create a task from it to be managed in on the PM side of things.
For more strategic work I’ve started to use Aha!, but only for the bigger projects (that I hope to do more of in 2016).
I’m addicted to Slack! I have a team of people that I work with and we’re spread across the globe (not so unusual these days for most of us I think). Slack lets me talk to my team individually, collectively and easily, lets me upload and send files of all sorts, and download same. And the transfer is instantaneous. Much better than email for projects. Don’t know how I managed without it!
Everyone I talk to is raving about slack… but try as hard as I might, I just can’t find a good use for it in our team. Possibly because we already use a collaborative work environment with Podio which has live chat function built in.
I do feel kinda like I’m on the outer looking into the cool kids crowd
