MS Teams, Actions for Success and Sales Quotas

Business Brain the Show for entrepreneurs episode 4:30 for Friday, March 10, 2023 greetings folks and welcome back to Business Brain, the show where we apply our Business brains to just about anything and everything, including stuff you send us at Facebook feedbackusinessbrain show sponsors for this episode include notion AI and you can learn about notion AI and notion in general and try notion AI for free by visiting notion.com businessbrain we'll talk more in depth about that in a little bit. For now here in Durham, New Hampshire, at least while we're recording this, I'm.

Dave Hamilton and Lafayette, California. I'm Shannon Jean. Yeah man, how are you man?

I'm good, you know, just rocking and rolling, getting it all done because. Because I don't know what else to do. I just get it all done because that's what I.

There's no alternative, right? You just.

There probably is. I'm just not smart enough to see it.

So I think it's good.

I do. I agree. Yeah, I agree. I agree. That's cool.

Excited to be using this Notion thing. I think it's pretty cool.

Yeah. Yeah, it's. Yes, I agree. I agree.

Learning along with the rest of us how to use it.

How to use it.

I'm looking forward to that.

Yeah. Same. We'll tell you about it as things progress here over the next couple of weeks. We got some feedback from listener Tony in Rockville. We asked in episode 427 we were talking about different tools and we asked about Microsoft Teams and he says, I heard you talking about that in episode 427 from March 1, he says, I use Microsoft Teams in my work environment, which is an organization of several thousand with offices around the world. As with most large organizations, we are standardized on Microsoft applications, including not just Ms. Office and Teams, but also SharePoint for editing documents and tracking organizational calendars. Even beyond Outlook, we have Windows machines on our desktops, but we use organization issued iPhones and iPads for mobile work. This is all my context for comments here about teams. A really nice feature of both teams and all of these Microsoft programs more generally is that they are genuinely cross platform. So my iPhone and iPad apps for teams perfectly integrate with my Windows desktop in terms of actual features. I agree with Shannon's comment about on the show that Teams is intuitive. I have tried, he says, but been unable to figure out discord. For example, Team still has a bit of clunkiness in that there are a lot of tabs running down the side and I cannot figure out the difference between activity and chat tabs. It also takes a bit of figuring to form a chat group on the fly with specific people, but overall the chat function is not that hard to figure out. For video calls, I've had to migrate to Teams from Zoom. I believe that Zoom is more flexible in that you can text to just certain people in a call with Zoom, whereas Teams Chat goes to everyone on the call all. Also, and in contradiction to my point about Teams being intuitive, he says you need to be really, really careful with Teams chat because it is not easy to tell if an incoming chat message came via an active Teams call or via a side chat. So you could inadvertently respond to a chat and message the whole group via the active call rather than the side chat. And that could be embarrassing. Tony implies perhaps that it may or may not have happened to him. These important considerations aside, Team's advantages are that it does integrate nicely with the Microsoft Office suite and it is perfectly cross platform. Considering that I have to use it, I've gotten used to it and it's fine, he says. Thanks for that, Tony. And because we featured your email on the show, you are of course entered into the drawing for a MacBook Air this year. FeedbackUsBrain show is where any of you would send that. But thank you, Tony. That's great feedback. I'm glad to hear that Teams has that intuitiveness and I think he's right to lean heavily on this cross platform thing. Microsoft originally got a bad rap for making apps that were either for Windows primarily or for Mac primarily. There were some in time that were more Mac apps than Windows apps, but they really kind of figured out the cross platform thing when they had to start developing for iPhone and obviously that has spilled over and that's been good.

Even if they had it, they often would have features that didn't work on one platform or another. So hearing that it is seamlessly cross platform, I think it's, it's great. I still, you know, I'm playing around with it and learning more about it and so I'm looking forward to continuing the discovery about it. I think it'd be great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I was hanging out with a friend. This is a friend who I've been in touch with for, for decades. I think the last time I saw him was either 1995 or 2001, I can't remember which, but I was at a party at his house and when I saw him, certainly in 1995, he, he is an artist and he has, he has taken that and is now an art teacher and is, in fact, almost about to retire, a few years away from retiring as an art teacher, which sort of blew my mind. Again, we've been in touch, but I had not been to his house in decades. The last time, it certainly in 1995, when it was at his house for. For this party. He has this one party every year. And it's a very creative thing. It's fantastic. But I haven't been. And in 95, when I was at his house, it was this tiny little apartment. He was making $14,000 a year as an artist, making jewelry and selling it at, like, crafts fairs. Now he lives in this gorgeous home and is about to retire with a pension. And that sort of blew my mind. And I said that to him, like, this is really. I mean, I said, I know we've been in touch, but, you know, I have not been in your home since you lived in that tiny little apartment, you know. And he laughed and he said, yeah, you know, it's funny. He says, that year you're talking about, he says, I remember my brother showed up at the party early, and he had stopped at some sandwich shop and bought a sandwich. And he showed up at my house with the sandwich, and he was gonna eat it. Cause he hadn't eaten dinner. And, you know, we don't serve dinner at the party. And so, you know, it was like he was gonna eat before the party started, which. Which was fine. But he says, I remember looking at my brother's sandwich and thinking, wow, I'd like to be able to buy a sandwich. But what we wound up talking about from there was those moments are good to remember. They're not necessarily good to relive, but they are powerful moments, and we all have them. For my friend Duffy, it's the sandwich story. But for all of us, we have those moments where we, you know, something burned into our memory about what we couldn't do. And then, you know, that perhaps was part of the fuel that pushed us forward to be able to have the financial flexibility to do those things. And. And. But also to remember those moments. Like, okay, I've. I've, you know, I've, you know, progressed forward. I now have a different financial frame of reference on my life. But it's good to remember the sandwich moments, you know, to. To not forget that. Okay, I've come a long way, and I definitely don't want to go back there. Like, I always want to be able to afford a sandwich if I want a sandwich. So, you know, the fuel to drive you through your day Is at least for Duffy, the sandwich moment be different for all of us. But I. We all have those moments. And I. It was just one of those really interesting kind of conversations to have and, And. And, yeah. Reflect on.

I think it's. Yeah. And I think it's important to recognize too. For me, it's. It's visual.

Okay. Okay.

I'm a. I've had a case of the. I want since I was a little kid. I want this, I want that, I want that. And I realized quickly that that's my. That's how I can motivate myself. When I was a little kid, I fell in love with Jeeps, the vehicles. And I got. I had this poster on my wall that had like, I don't know, 30 or 40 different jeeps. And I used to tell myself, I'm going to own one of each of those in my lifetime.

No wonder you have Jeeps.

Yeah. And so I have kept accumulating different models and different things. And one, you know, I think I've. I've only owned, I don't know, maybe five or six different. Different. Maybe seven. But it. I've used that trick my entire life. I wanted a. A beautiful home, you know, and I always went. So on the weekends we would. My wife and I would go drive through the neighborhood that we. Neighborhoods that we wanted to live in and just look at these houses. And to me, it was just a brain hack.

Yes.

To continually make myself think. I mean, when I was driving, looking at these homes, it was inconceivable to me that I could ever live in this area. I live here now. But it constantly kept me going because I really don't like to compare. I don't think comparison works. And it takes away much of the joy in your life if you compare yourself.

No, but to drive towards something that's yours, even though you've seen someone else with it. Like Duffy saw his brother with the sandwich, but he didn't want his brother's sandwich. He wanted to be able to buy his own sandwich.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So when you want to compare, you should compare yourself to who. What you were doing and who you were yesterday.

Yes. Right.

And so.

And who you can be tomorrow. Yes, Correct.

That is a big motivator, that. Visual things, you know, pictures hanging on the wall, whatever you want to do it. It really has worked for me.

I. I credit so much of my. That. That ability to aspire. Right. Because that's what we're talking about here is. Is because you got to be able to visual. You got to see it somehow, you know, you got to visualize it in order to. To make it on your path. And I did so much consulting in people's homes, fixing their computers and that sort of thing. And for the most part, the people who. Whose homes I visited were much nicer than mine. And I got to see and I got to know these people because I would spend hours with them, and I got to see how they lived and how they interacted. And that changed everything for me. My wife was. Was saying something. She's like, you really, you kind of broke the mold from your family. And I'm like, well, it's in part due to you and in part due to the, you know, the people that I immersed myself with unintentionally. But, yeah, makes a huge difference, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. All right, so there's been a lot of buzz around AI lately. We've been talking about it here on the show quite a bit, but maybe you're not sure how it fits into your daily life or your workflow. Well, Notion has just launched a new incredible tool, Notion AI that's fully integrated into Notion, so it has the context of everything you're already working on. Notion is this cool thing. If you don't already know about it. You got to check it out. Shannon and I have started using it, you know, for a long time, we just used a single doc for our agendas, and it's fine, but, like, that starts to get unruly and unwieldy. Notion lets you combine your notes and your docs into one space that's super simple, beautifully designed, and now more powerful than ever, thanks to AI. Notion AI helps you work faster, write better, and think bigger, doing tasks that normally take you hours in just seconds. Right, because that's what AI, as we've been talking about here on the show, that's what it's good for, is giving you those thought starters. And now you get to have that happen with the context of the stuff that you already have in Notion, and it's across all your notes and docs without the need to jump between your work and a separate AI powered tool. Notion AI is designed to help you with your work right in the place where you're doing your work, not some separate AI tool you gotta copy and paste. So whatever you're working on, Notion AI lets you skip to the good part, right? You can save time and write faster by letting Notion AI handle all the brainstorming in your first draft, or it can take your messy notes and turn them into Something polished. It's amazing. For a limited time, you can try Notion AI for free when you go to notion.com businessbrain that's all lowercase letters. Notion.com businessbrain to try out the incredible power of Notion AI today. And when you use our link, you're supporting our show, right? This is a limited time offer though. So try notion AI for free right now@notion.com businessbrain I think you're going to love this. And our thanks to Notion and Notion AI for sponsoring this episode. While we're here, I've got a show for you. Are you interested in growing your e commerce store or perhaps even starting one? Well then you should be listening to the award winning top e commerce podcast, E Commerce Master Plan. Host and author of the best selling book E Commerce Marketing, Chloe Thomas has been in the e commerce industry for nearly 20 years, helping E commerce entrepreneurs like you and like us to grow our business. Every week on the show, Chloe interviews a different e commerce brand to explore how they are achieving their success. From startups to eight figure brands, there's always something new to learn. You can listen now on your favorite podcast app, just search for E Commerce Master Plan or you can go to their website@ecommercemasterplan.com podcast and our thanks to Chloe for, for doing this. Swap with us. All right, Shannon, what do you got today?

Let me tell you this. Something that happened to me the other day that I thought was fascinating. All right, so we live near the Napa Valley and go up there from time to time and have lunch. And I think we actually went up a few weeks ago, Valentine's Day and went to lunch a couple wineries and we picked up some wine. We're part of a club on this one. Winery, went for a tour. It's great. Went on the way out, we got our wine. I mean it was, I don't know how many bottles it were, but I don't know, it was 3, 400 bucks.

Sure.

And as I went to leave, one of the employees made a comment that just struck me and I was like, man, we have to talk about this on the show. And so as we went to leave, she handed me the case of however many bottles of wine and, and she said, oh, I know it's the, it was the 14th, I know it's 14th. I hope you don't mind if we wait to bill you in March because we've already met our sales quota for February and I want to apply this towards March.

Wait, what? This was, this wasn't the 28th of the month. This was the 14th of the month.

Yeah, this was the 14th. So they had obviously had a good. A good couple weeks.

Yeah. But like, I. And when you told me this story in the pre show, I. I was like, okay, yeah, this. No, I mean, like, even if it was the 28th, like, all of the same things, we should talk about it anyway. But holy crap, 14th.

So I was like, okay, sure. You know, but. And. And I got in the car and I was talking to. To Rene. I was like, you know, that's a. If you own this winery.

Oh, yeah.

That is just a negative thing all around. Number one, your cash flow is less.

Right.

Number two, who is going to. What vehicle is in is being used to track these sales that you're pushing off for so they don't get forgot. And I will tell you, I checked before we came on the show today. I have still not been charged for that. That.

So this is now March 6th. We are in March 6th. You haven't been charged for this. That was three weeks ago. Yeah. This is insane. They gave you wine. You will. I. I will not be surprised if you never get charged.

I'll keep an eye on it and let you know. And it's a great winery. We love. The people are super.

Yeah.

You know, friendly. And. And we go like, say we go up for events that they have and everything. And so I just thought it's. It's a. Because you want to have, you know, goals and stretch goals and systems in place for your sales team. And hey, if you hit these numbers, you're going to get a bonus. But at the same time, this particular person was looking ahead for 2024, thinking.

Wow, if we want a sandbag.

Yes. Because if we book a huge February, that means I'm going to have to exceed that next year. So I think that if it's happening at places like that, it's happening every, you know, everywhere, probably.

I have been known here at that at Backbeat Media to take something that comes in on March 1st and call it a February 28th deal. Right. If I want to use the numbers for February or vice versa. Like, I have been guilty of that.

A day, a couple days here and.

There, mostly to motivate the team and be able to say, hey, our February sales were X or our March sales are already exceeding last March, even just two days in. Like, I love being able to do that stuff. And so, like, like, when you. Again, when you mentioned this to me pre show, I was like, okay, well, I have some Defense for this. I am, I need to correct myself. I have zero defense for this. If we're at February 14th and we've already crushed our February sales quota, whatever that might be, based on whatever it is, and we're still bringing in sales, I'm going to ring that bell every day, every moment that I can to motivate the team, you know and you.

Got to eliminate this concept of and I imagine that salespeople everywhere could speak to this of like, wow, you know, if I hit these big numbers next year, I may really have a hard time.

Right.

Because the bar is continually raised.

Right. That's always never.

That's just life.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

It's not going. Yeah. And so it may reset once in a while.

Yeah. Economy or bad year, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I was trying to think of a way that you could kind of spin this and change the frame of hey, we hit our number one. We under projected.

Right.

Obviously our budgeting or our sales projections were too low for February. Why is that? And help get your people involved of. Let's figure out what happened. Did we have more people come in? Do you, did we as our average sale price much higher. Did we have in the case of a winery, did we get more people signed up for the club or whatever, you know, that kind of thing. And it would be a great exercise in getting them involved and also telling them, hey, you know, we're going to base it the next year's numbers on something maybe you meet in the middle.

Right.

So instead of wow, we're going to add those two week sales on so next February you're really going to have to knock it out of the park. But maybe it's like, hey guys, just will let you know we think we under projected for February. So we're only going to add, I don't know, 20, 20% or maybe it's 25%.

I don't, whatever. Yeah, whatever. You're. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But that engagement would get you and, and your, your team more on the same page because you don't want them doing this.

No. You want to talk about. I, I, I love this idea. No, this is a great because I mean this is essentially what we do at Backbeat. Like we will if, if, and this happens sometimes. Like what I said, we're, you know, we're at like the second day of the month and we've crushed that month from the year prior.

We've had it too.

It happens. Right. And so we talk about it like, okay, is this something that, like, obviously, this is great news, you know, of course. What's that?

You should be celebrated.

Right? Let's celebrate. Breathe. Now, let's look at this. Okay, let's keep selling, but let's talk about why this happens. So that next year, if things are slower, I don't have a team full of dejected people. I've got a team full of informed people. God, it's crazy, man.

Yeah. So it's. As business owners, managers, you know, it's our responsibility to be monitoring this stuff and to turn it into something that you can get closer to your people with. And they. You build more trust and more credibility. Because in this person's case, they're like, oh, man, we are screwed next February. So I'm going to not book any large sales or whatever it is. Any. Any sales until March. And how many of those sales are not going to get booked or forgotten? What if my credit card expired or gets declined in March? I mean, I have to remember, I.

Think you have free wine. If this didn't happen on March 1st, you have free wine. Well, it's at the same time, like, you care about this winery. You like it. It's a business, like, oh, yeah. Most of us that. That buy regularly from the same business. We kind of want the business to survive.

Of course. Of course. I will reach out to these people if, like, hey, you know. Yeah, you didn't. Because they've been around for a long time and I, you know, you don't want to screw them, you know.

No, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But that's not the goal.

Look, but I really, what I want to do is if you don't do that, you got free one. And I'm not. I'm not suggesting that you should. Yeah, yeah.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to email the owner a link to this episode. Oh, and not because we didn't mention any names.

Nope.

And that's correct. But it's a lesson. It's nobody. I mean, yeah, somebody did something wrong, but it's a great team of people. They're super enthusiastic about.

No, this is a management problem. My words. But this is a management problem. Yep.

Yes.

Yep.

That's right. They've missed an opportunity to change this whole thing and get everybody. It's, you know, oh, we are all on the same side. We are on the same team. So when something weird happens. Because you ought to do the Same Thing on February 14, if the numbers.

Just suck, you know, the month isn't going to work. Yeah, yeah.

Hey, what happened here. And look at last February and look at the previous month. What's going on? Is it, you know, is it an unrealistic number that we, that we listed or whatever it is? All those things are opportunities to get closer to your team, to build trust, build credibility. In the long run, they're going to work harder for you. You're going to make more money.

I like it, man. I like it. Yeah.

Anybody have a story like that? We'd love to hear it. FeedbackUsBrain show love to feature your story, whether it's your business or some other business you are at. And if we talk about it on the show, you'll be entered to win a MacBook Air. And the odds are definitely in your favor.

Definitely in your favor. Favor, yeah. Feedbackbrain SHOW we'd love to hear from you. And really that's why we're doing this contest, because we love to hear from you. Keep living that charmed life. We'll see you next week.