Juliet Fallowfield, FF&M’s Founder & MD, has learnt several lessons since starting FF&M. As her company approaches its fourth anniversary, Juliet wanted to share the lessons she’s learnt to save new entrepreneurs time and help them avoid pitfalls. Read on below for the tech chapter.
Invest in the tech tools you need to run your business
This is money well spent and will save you a lot of time in the long run. Xero, Dext, LastPass, Google Workspace and Toggl are some of my favourite platforms.
Second pair of headphones
Keep a spare pair of wired headphones nearby in case yours break 3 minutes before a Zoom call. You’ll thank yourself later.
Streamline your communications
Use the least number of communications platforms as possible for internal comms, so you don’t have to hunt for messages. We primarily use email and only WhatsApp each other if it’s urgent. We also discuss our ways of working with clients ahead of starting any work to ensure we all know how to best contact each other and no one is left frustrated.
Assign comments in Google Docs
When you comment on text in Google Docs, you can choose to tag a member of your team in the comment and assign the comment as an action for them to complete. Google Docs then emails them to let them know. This is great for efficiently working together remotely while keeping on top of responsibilities.
Group your tabs in Google Chrome & Safari
Avoid web browser ‘tab anxiety’ by grouping your tabs by project or client so that they aren’t all open at once. I group tabs by client or internal FF&M project so I can quickly find all my documents and not have to continually reopen them.
Set up multi-time zones in your calendar
When you’re travelling, set up multiple time zones in your calendar so you no longer have to spend time working out what the time is for clients joining calls back home, nor are you waking up at 3am to do a Zoom call.
Use Facebook communities for IT support
I’ve found these really useful to find advice on any tech platform you’re using. It’s much faster than contacting the platform providers directly as typically someone else will have had the same issue as you and be keen to share their answer.
Next month, Juliet will be sharing the people and recruitment chapter of her lessons we’ve learnt as a small business series. Follow us on Instagram for more tips and tricks or dial into our podcast How To Start Up on what to learn now, next or never when starting or scaling a business.