In this episode of On a Roll, host Mike Michalowicz humorously introduces four Chrome extensions that can dramatically boost Gmail productivity. He first mentions Boomerang, which lets users schedule emails to be sent later and set follow‑up reminders if a recipient hasn’t replied. Next, he showcases Rapportive, a sidebar tool that displays a contact’s photo, social media activity, phone number, and other profile details directly within Gmail, helping users decide whether to engage. The third extension, Insert Text, provides a right‑click menu for inserting pre‑written snippets or templates into emails, streamlining repetitive messaging. Finally, he presents Send Using Gmail, which intercepts mailto: links on the web and opens Gmail instead of legacy email clients, ensuring a seamless Gmail‑centric workflow. Throughout, Mike delivers the recommendations in a light‑hearted, conversational tone, encouraging viewers to install the extensions and experience a more efficient email experience.
Chapters
Welcome to On a Roll, and now here's your host, Mike Michalowicz. Hi, and welcome to On a Roll. I am your host— wait for it, wait for it— Mike Michalowicz. That's right. Thank you for coming and watching On a Roll. Today we're going to talk about the 4 Chrome extensions you should be using for your Gmail to make it really productive. First, swaggy! This came in, it's called The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry, also known as Henry Todd. He was beat up for this in high school and grade school, so it's a horrible thing, but his book is awesome. He's got some bruises and stuff going on. Okay, so let's get into what we're talking about here. The 4 things you need to use for your Gmail. Now again, it needs Chrome, it's the Chrome extensions, but I'm sure it's out there for Firefox or Internet Explorer, whatever you use. Number 1, use Boomerang. Boomerang is an application that allows you to send out an email on a delayed schedule. So if you don't want to send it instantly and want to wait 1, 2, 3, 4 hours, you can. Plus, if someone doesn't respond to you, you can set a trigger that 1 day, 2 days, 3 days later, if they haven't emailed you, Boomerang emails you back and says you haven't got a reply yet. Stick that one in the old corn cob pipe and smoke it. Second program to use is called Rapportive. This one blows my mind. When you type in someone's email address in your Gmail, Rapportive pulls up a whole bio on the person on the side. Has their picture, has some recent tweets and social media stuff they put out there, has their phone number, where they live, all the info you need to know what the hell's going on with this person. Plus now you know what they look like, and you're like, oh, should I really send an email to this troll? Hey! Okay, third program to use is called Insert Text. Insert Text It lets you do formed emails. So when you go into a Gmail, you're sending me something, you're in Gmail and you're sending me something, you can right-click now and say Insert Text, and you can send your generic form. Mike, you suck. That could be your form. And you can send it over and over. And the final one to use may be the coolest. It's called Send Using Gmail. There's no buttons, no options, no nothing. But what it does is the next time you're surfing the internet and you see someone's email address and you click on it, you know, to send them an email, It doesn't pull up your Outlook Express from like 1930. It now will pull up Gmail for you. It enables your email to actually be Gmail when you click on someone's link. Awesome. Absolutely awesome. Install those 4 extensions and then drop me an email telling me how much you love me. And of course, you can use Insert Text to do that. My buddy Ollie is a big Chrome user. What extension do you recommend for me? Maybe you should get the Chrome extension for your—
