Пълният препис на The Software Programs We Recommend for Wild Businesses at Start-Up

these tools is understanding what you're actually using them for. 00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:03.108 And we could talk all day about why you absolutely need a mailing list. 00:05:04.250 --> 00:05:05.814 That's not the point of this podcast today. 00:05:05.814 --> 00:05:17.168 But trust us in saying setting something up to collect emails that you can send out to people is absolutely key, and MailChimp offers a free plan. 00:05:17.168 --> 00:05:45.790 So I think it's like at this point in time, as we are recording, when you go onto MailChimp, the free plan offers you like 500 subscribers, which is a fair bit when you're starting up, and once and I guess the thing to remember is once if you've got 500 subscribers, that must mean that your business is doing all right, so you know, then you can have a look at upgrading your plan to have the functionality that you might need in that next step of your business as well. 00:05:45.790 --> 00:05:52.233 So the free plans offer you enough to get you started and get you used to using them as well. 00:05:52.233 --> 00:06:04.403 I think is the key thing to remember about the programs is, once you start using them, you start to realize what it is you want out of them and spend a bit of time working out how to set those up. 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:10.201 I love. 00:06:10.201 --> 00:06:11.184 I always keep that number in my head. 00:06:11.184 --> 00:06:37.470 I couldn't even tell you where I heard that saying from is that you need a thousand loyal customers to run a successful business because, even though they might not be buying from you at that particular moment, they're championing you and so and that's how you keep them hot, as hot leads and loyal customers is that regular contact with regular, you know information or gifts or you know things that you're giving those customers to remind them about you and to feel like you're nurturing them. 00:06:37.470 --> 00:06:51.386 So that's why an EDM is so important, and please make sure all your contacts aren't just kept on social media and please make sure all your contacts aren't just kept on social media, yes, um. 00:06:51.406 --> 00:07:15.701 So the next thing that you probably want to invest some time in um and you'll need software to do this is a, a website um, which is not probably necessary in the grand scheme of things, but if you have big plans and if you think about it from a customer's perspective, most people expect to be able to find a website with information about what you're doing. 00:07:15.701 --> 00:07:29.875 Some people get by just fine through social media and we know quite a few really successful nature play businesses who have entirely had their business running through Instagram. 00:07:30.925 --> 00:07:37.658 I would love to ask the question about how much time it takes them up not having a booking system. 00:07:37.978 --> 00:07:38.178 Yeah. 00:07:38.625 --> 00:07:46.192 Because, though they are successful programs and running beautiful programs, how

much time are they spending with that not being automated? 00:07:46.553 --> 00:07:47.326 Exactly so. 00:07:47.326 --> 00:07:56.016 Having a website will save you time and admin stress, and there is running a business for yourself. 00:07:56.016 --> 00:08:16.314 A particularly service-based business means that you are spending a lot of time in customer relationships, and if you can shortcut that information by having a website where people can go to to answer their own questions, it means that they're only coming to you with really pressing things, rather than questions that you can have answered on your website. 00:08:16.314 --> 00:08:28.088 So a free website builder like Wix is going to be your best friend, so it's a builder that you can use without having to pay a monthly or a yearly subscription to have. 00:08:28.088 --> 00:08:45.918 It is something that we would highly recommend you looking into, even if it was just a homepage and a couple of landing pages about your program, or to host the next bit of software that we would highly recommend, which is some way for your customers to book your programs. 00:08:47.306 --> 00:08:58.500 I just want to add with Wix that if you do choose to go down the free route, it is a subdomain, so it would be raisingwildlingswixcomau. 00:08:58.500 --> 00:09:05.014 So again, just when you're thinking from a customer journey point of view, does that lend professionalism? 00:09:05.014 --> 00:09:07.187 Some people don't care, Some people do. 00:09:07.187 --> 00:09:07.447 Same. 00:09:07.447 --> 00:09:13.875 With the Instagram, you know, if I can only access you on Instagram, does that feel a hundred percent professional? 00:09:13.875 --> 00:09:16.926 Some people don't care at all, Other people might go. 00:09:16.926 --> 00:09:19.936 This feels like you know, maybe, maybe not. 00:09:19.936 --> 00:09:23.287 You don't know really, you don't know your market. 00:09:23.386 --> 00:09:24.650 But just a heads up. 00:09:24.650 --> 00:09:47.485 Knowing that, like knowing that you know at the end of the day you're making decisions in the backend based on your experiences, but having to keep in mind that your customer is going to have a customer user experience, and we can drive people away really quickly by making it hard to contact us, to interact with us, to book with us. 00:09:47.485 --> 00:10:00.607 And I know that even as a consumer myself, and increasingly now where our attention spans are not great, I know that I've even abandoned things that I wanted to buy because I've had to go find my card. 00:10:00.607 --> 00:10:09.914 It hasn't been easy to make the transaction and it might sound silly, but that is where consumers are at and you have to keep that in mind. 00:10:11.086 --> 00:10:24.671 Another quick thing on websites, too, is you can also use WordPress for free and MailChimp for free, but don't forget, most websites will require you to pay for your domain name additionally and also security additionally. 00:10:24.671

--> 00:10:31.086 So do look into your packages really carefully to see what's included have a plan, yeah, yeah. 00:10:31.125 --> 00:10:38.065 So if you're going to start with a free one, have a look at what they're offering as the next level, because that's where you'll need to move into to progression. 00:10:38.164 --> 00:10:52.567 If you're really serious, that forward planning could save you in the long run, and I would say WordPress, unless you're an IT person, is not an easy way to go, despite it being free. 00:10:52.567 --> 00:11:02.254 You're going to use up so much of your time learning to code, so paying a bit more for a drop and go website builder is so much better worth your time. 00:11:02.254 --> 00:11:25.615 All right, let's talk about the booking systems, because I think this is one that gets overlooked, because it's one of the ones, unless you're running as a Google form or you're just doing like the Instagram with a bank transfer or Instagram with a cash payment, people are hesitant to sign up to one, because it's one of the first software programs you kind of have to pay for. 00:11:25.615 --> 00:11:34.991 You know, we started really cheaply with Event Espresso and there's heaps of ticket booketing systems, so many apps. 00:11:34.991 --> 00:11:36.996 We've used what? 00:11:37.116 --> 00:12:08.986 Four, five, I think four different ticket booking systems, because what we realized as we grew was that our needs changed and most of these systems are set up for one location, one type of program, like yoga classes in Maroochydore, easy Gymnastics for children in Bulimba Great, you know, when we've got multiple locations, multiple age groups, it's multiple different types of events Outgrew a free system very quickly, very quickly. 00:12:08.986 --> 00:12:14.366 So I would say this is one of the things I would invest in as quickly as possible, absolutely. 00:12:14.366 --> 00:12:24.148 You can use an Excel spreadsheet, you can use Google forms, you can just use Instagram messaging in cash, but be wary of how much time you're sinking into these ways of booking people in? 00:12:24.168 --> 00:12:32.828 Yeah, because every time you opt for a low-cost option, it's low cost in terms of money handed over, but it's costing you in your time. 00:12:33.350 --> 00:12:41.474 So at first that is an easy trade to make, because you often don't have that choice. 00:12:41.474 --> 00:12:45.705 If I was going through these, you know things that we're talking about today. 00:12:45.705 --> 00:12:48.211 The first thing I would invest in is a ticketing system. 00:12:48.211 --> 00:12:57.597 Many of them are actually free and it's just they take a cut of each booking, which is a more cost-effective way to begin with. 00:12:57.597 --> 00:13:08.211 But if you are planning ahead, looking at if you were to get a certain amount of bookings, how much that's costing you, as opposed to just like a monthly subscription. 00:13:08.211 --> 00:13:33.394 The booking system we use

at the moment only costs us $40 a month and if you break that down to the amount of bookings that you're like amount of time, like even if you spent you know, depending on what hourly rate you put on yourself if you were spending more than two hours in a month dealing with bookings then paying that subscription fee is probably worth it in your time, because then your time can be used in other areas of your business. 00:13:34.537 --> 00:13:40.971 Time is money and if you flip that and you're using the cost per ticket, say we get I don't know. 00:13:40.971 --> 00:13:47.173 I'm just pulling a number 500 bookings in a month and it's a percentage per ticket is way more than $40. 00:13:48.254 --> 00:14:05.270 So you just have to like you know, it's so great that these options are out there, but just also having a really good idea of what that actually means longer term for you and going, okay, this is what I'm going to use short term, and then, once I get to this point, I need to start considering upgrading my software. 00:14:06.153 --> 00:14:08.197 And also upgrading your software takes time. 00:14:08.197 --> 00:14:17.653 It's not that you can't do it, and most of those bigger systems will help you migrate your customer list over, but it's a headache and it is stressful. 00:14:17.653 --> 00:14:23.514 So I actually think it's $40 a month and to me that's one bottom on one seat a month. 00:14:23.514 --> 00:14:28.356 It's worth it from the get go right to not have to swap four times. 00:14:30.089 --> 00:14:41.592 At the end of the day, it's so funny because, yeah, it's important to find ways to cut costs, but also there's this payoff, such big payoff, the payoff. 00:14:41.985 --> 00:14:51.277 Because, you hear the journey of business owners and I can see every person I've met that started a business has been like yes, passionate, yes, doing everything, yes, saving money everywhere. 00:14:51.277 --> 00:14:52.586 Oh, burnout, boom. 00:14:52.586 --> 00:14:58.369 And it's because we start with these systems where it's more time than money and we don't switch over quick enough. 00:14:58.369 --> 00:15:04.748 So, absolutely, start for free, go nuts, but please switch over before burnout. 00:15:04.969 --> 00:15:14.649 That's our hot tip have a bit of a plan for it and, you know, make sure that you put it in your calendar well, so that you've got time to problem solve things that might come up. 00:15:14.649 --> 00:15:43.549 But yeah, it is definitely very, very important to have a booking system in place and then also payment software, payment gateway so, like store options, it is as much as it's annoying to have to pay a fee to those payment processes, it's it will drive people away Like you'll lose sales you'll lose bums on seats for not having accessible payment options for people. 00:15:43.629 --> 00:15:55.808 So having a booking system that incorporates easy ways for people to pay may cost you outright, but you're more likely to get more income from it because you're making your customer journey so much easier. 00:15:56.250 --> 00:16:07.125 Yeah, remember, in general, most of you, most of your ticket buyers in general, are going to be mothers in general, booking in bed at 10 o'clock at night on their mobile phone. 00:16:07.125 --> 00:16:12.626 So how can you make it as easy as possible for them to purchase on their phone when they're half asleep? 00:16:12.966 --> 00:16:13.488 That's right. 00:16:13.488 --> 00:16:40.182 And then the next part of your business that you can absolutely do well and do for free is your marketing graphics for your social media through something like Canva Now if you haven't used Canva before, it's amazing Like it really is amazing how quickly and easily you can put together things using Can software. 00:16:40.182 --> 00:16:54.273 It's still limited free um, but it will bring the level of professionalism in your marketing and also be eye-catching um and grab people's attention. 00:16:54.273 --> 00:16:57.139 Very easy to use, free plan. 00:16:57.942 --> 00:17:04.531 Cannot recommend highly enough yeah, we used free for years in the beginning and we we pay now because we have a team on it. 00:17:04.531 --> 00:17:09.871 Uh, but we use it for free for years and we still love it, absolutely love it. 00:17:09.871 --> 00:17:11.474 All right. 00:17:11.474 --> 00:17:14.221 Socials what a beast. 00:17:14.221 --> 00:17:14.942 I mean. 00:17:14.942 --> 00:17:24.092 You've got facebook, instagram, pinterest, linkedin, tikt, but they're all free until you start advertising, so we don't have. 00:17:24.291 --> 00:17:31.538 I mean, yes, the yellow pages technically does still exist, but I don't know anyone that actually uses them anymore, so you have to be on them. 00:17:31.538 --> 00:17:39.309 What we wouldn't recommend is being on all of them, because you just can't, you can't, you know, you just can't be across all of them. 00:17:39.309 --> 00:17:43.979 Well, so, pick the ones you use the most, that you enjoy, that you enjoy being on. 00:17:43.979 --> 00:17:47.929 You might enjoy, you know, photos or video more, so you might be on Instagram. 00:17:47.929 --> 00:18:13.357 I would say, while TikTok is obviously going gang busters at the moment, just be aware we've experimented with this recently and while you can go viral pretty quickly and you can get lots of comments and likes really quickly, be aware that it's not as geographically relevant and who you attract are, as a beast of keyboard warriors. 00:18:13.357 --> 00:18:15.268 I'll list out there. 00:18:15.268 --> 00:18:18.393 It is a whole new world maybe. 00:18:18.432 --> 00:18:24.894 Maybe we're just showing our age, but it's important to be thinking about where your ideal customer is hanging out. 00:18:24.894 --> 00:18:30.452 Yeah, to be making a service-based purchasing decision, and it's probably not TikTok. 00:18:30.452 --> 00:18:39.096 So investing time in a social media medium where your customers are not hanging out is not

worth your time. 00:18:39.605 --> 00:18:41.951 No, tiktok seems great for products. 00:18:41.951 --> 00:18:47.330 You know, if you've got a forest school nature play product you want to push some gumboots, go nuts. 00:18:47.330 --> 00:18:49.317 That'd be awesome because you can send them anywhere. 00:18:49.317 --> 00:18:51.128 Same with, say, pinterest. 00:18:51.128 --> 00:18:54.566 If you've got downloadables or eBooks that you want to sell, awesome. 00:18:54.566 --> 00:19:00.115 Linkedin if you want to get on the guest speaker route or get into schools more, go nuts there. 00:19:00.115 --> 00:19:04.303 But for your day-to-day programs, I would say Instagram. 00:19:04.303 --> 00:19:07.172 At the moment, a lot of people have a lot of success with Facebook. 00:19:07.172 --> 00:19:17.439 We've just kind of slowly moved over to Instagram without even really realizing it as our main double post Instagram yeah, which is, you know, ease. 00:19:19.574 --> 00:19:37.045 Thanks, meta, you've met your ideal customer um, and finally, when it comes to software, um, I'm going to talk a little bit about finances, because that's nice, do vicky, hit us with it so you can use free software to manage your accounting. 00:19:37.045 --> 00:19:42.048 Now, if you're a very, very small business, a spreadsheet is probably fine. 00:19:43.491 --> 00:20:13.729 But what I will say is, if you are looking at growing, if you are making significant income, if you do have plans to grow this, is one area you do not want to neglect and not plan for, because there are plenty of people that we have been dealing with who have absolute nightmarish migraines over converting all of their information into a better system. 00:20:13.729 --> 00:20:35.210 So, spreadsheets, if you're running like a play group a week just to be able to keep a tab on your expenses and how much money is coming in, if you're starting to use things like booking systems, if you do have multiple programs and lots of expenses, then I would start looking at a proper program to be keeping an eye on those things. 00:20:35.210 --> 00:20:48.414 And if you are really dead serious, then I would suggest moving straight to a paid subscription straight off the bat, something like Xero. 00:20:48.414 --> 00:20:51.688 They usually offer like a six-month, three-month half price. 00:20:51.688 --> 00:20:59.734 There's some sort of deal always At the moment, I think it's like $16 a month, that's $4 a week to be running your books. 00:21:00.145 --> 00:21:03.175 It is so easy to use, it's so intuitive. 00:21:03.175 --> 00:21:06.335 Your accountant will know exactly what's going on in there. 00:21:06.335 --> 00:21:11.657 They've got like a practice tab that you can go in and have a play around with how it works. 00:21:11.657 --> 00:21:15.030 Most things can be undone. 00:21:15.030 --> 00:21:30.136 Like if you make a mistake, my accountant still says to me don't worry, we can always fix things if you've made a mistake, but the headaches you can have with accounting if you don't do it right will cost you way more than you'll save in trying to tighten your budget around it. 00:21:30.136 --> 00:21:44.815 So just take that one very, very seriously and just make sure you've got really good record keeping at the end of the day, because yeah, it's all of the other stuff can be stressful when it comes to finances. 00:21:44.815 --> 00:21:54.184 The tax department, accountants, what you owe, how much money Like that is a stress that is beyond anything else when it comes to business. 00:21:54.184 --> 00:21:56.292 So getting that right is very, very important. 00:21:56.924 --> 00:22:01.336 I think the other thing with things like Xero was that most business owners are using it. 00:22:01.336 --> 00:22:07.944 So you've probably got a friend that you could ask if you could have a sit down, shout them a coffee and can you run me through your tips and tricks. 00:22:07.944 --> 00:22:21.707 So Vicky does I'm dobbing you in here for you to say no, but Vicky does consults on Xero, particularly for wild businesses, because there is a bit of a niche within a niche, if that makes sense. 00:22:21.707 --> 00:22:29.875 Um, and also setting up bookio and things like that too, because you can make them talk to each other, which is amazing. 00:22:30.336 --> 00:22:34.688 Yeah and that's what and I mean that's exactly what happens when you get, when you have a plan. 00:22:34.688 --> 00:22:42.814 Our booking system is linked up to our accounting system, so invoices are very easy to reconcile. 00:22:42.814 --> 00:23:05.214 Mailchimp is then linked up with our booking system so that we've got records of people's email addresses and everything is linked up together and that takes that extra level of time away and everything's organised and it took us a really long time to get on top of that. 00:23:05.214 --> 00:23:14.951 If we can help people sort of fast track that process by, really, it's very easy to say when you're far into it to someone who's starting like this is what we would do. 00:23:14.951 --> 00:23:24.165 There's a reason why so many business owners are like I wish I had insert the thing you know. 00:23:24.547 --> 00:23:25.568 Yeah, it's always. 00:23:25.568 --> 00:23:36.188 You know, what every business owner says is I wish I had have offloaded some things earlier, whether that's to a software, because essentially software is just taking over the role of a human right. 00:23:36.188 --> 00:23:41.890 So you're either offloading that to a software program time or you're offloading your time to a person. 00:23:41.890 --> 00:23:50.545 So that's our tip is offload it sooner than you think you're ready for, because you will save time and you need to be working on your business, not in it. 00:23:50.565 --> 00:24:06.340 You don't want to be up at 10 o'clock every night sorting out invoices when your you know your zero could be doing that for you, or you could be scheduling mail chimps, or you know you could be your booking systems automatically moving your mailing list over to your edm list. 00:24:06.340 --> 00:24:11.834 So really think about you are only one person. 00:24:11.834 --> 00:24:14.179 You only have a certain amount of time per week. 00:24:14.179 --> 00:24:18.445 Some of that is going to be spent on the ground, hopefully doing the business you wanted to start exactly. 00:24:18.445 --> 00:24:20.111 Think about where you wanted to start Exactly. 00:24:20.111 --> 00:24:21.836 Think about where you want to spend your time. 00:24:21.836 --> 00:24:29.912 Would you rather be running an extra program a week or would you rather be spending one bum on one seat a week, consolidating that into a software program? 00:24:30.574 --> 00:24:31.115 There you have it. 00:24:31.115 --> 00:24:35.772 You don't need to start with every whiz-bang software program and the cost associated with it. 00:24:35.772 --> 00:24:41.326 In fact, many of these we still use as our main software programs associated with it. 00:24:41.326 --> 00:24:42.713 In fact, many of these we still use as our main software programs. 00:24:42.713 --> 00:24:44.321 So don't use your budget as an excuse not to start your own wild business. 00:24:44.321 --> 00:24:49.194 You can start with pretty much all free software and start upgrading as your business and your budget grows. 00:24:49.194 --> 00:24:54.634 We hope that's helped tame some of those fears around technology for all of you nature lovers. 00:24:54.634 --> 00:24:56.946 So until next time, stay wild. 00:24:56.967 --> 00:24:57.428 Stay wild.