Parksie’s App Stack
I have a client who is change-resistant.
This is challenging for our relationship because I am pro-change and all about tech. He’s technology shy and once said to me, “you should name your new puppy Apps.” You can imagine that we have had some lively discussions about his business workflows and processes.
Full disclosure, this “client” is also my husband. He has a Fly Fishing Guiding Company. And he’s a terrific guide, or so I hear. But you can imagine that he’s somewhat earthy and laid back. Not so much for the “complications” of the business side of things. I swear he’d be happy telling someone how much the day cost and hope they pay him.
Actually, that was then. Things have changed.
Jeff “Parksie” has a pack of apps now that he has adopted, embraced and wouldn’t go without. In fact, I was trying to reorganize a bit to consolidate a workflow, drop a few apps, and he was having no part of it. I can’t really disagree in this case. It would have streamlined things a bit for him, but the benefits of that change would have been outweighed by the loss of a few great program features.
So what are the programs in #ParksiesAppPack? What are the “go to’s” for a small, non-business type business owner? What benefits and features do they bring to a tech reluctant guy like Jeff?
QuickBooks Online
His accounting program.
Invoicing and receive payments magically, on the fly.
So, and oh dear to my allegiance with Intuit, I almost bailed on QBO for Jeff’s solopreneur breakaway business. We all know I love these guys and that I sing the praises of QuickBooks Online constantly, but I did try to convince Parksie to do his bookkeeping in 17Hats.
Shhhh, cone of silence. It would have been a great addition to his workflow and really taken a few to-dos off his list. He wouldn’t have needed to jump out of 17Hats, go to QBO and then link back into a 17Hats email. Plus, he’s got no need for a balance sheet. It would have been perfect, except for a few things. To start with, he’s hooked on QBO. He loves the interface; it’s simple enough that I have nothing to do with his invoicing, and dropping the “copy link” into a 17Hats template email works great. The real deal-breaker, though, is in receiving payments. The QBO merchant system is awesome. For his clients, for him and mostly for me.
We split his individual guest side of the business out of our shared corporate event business beginning Jan 1st, so it would have been great timing to jump ship. I had to set up a new file anyhow (actually, Jeff is setting it up; that’s how comfy QBO is), but in the end, I’m glad he wouldn’t budge. Especially today as I’m about to do a bank rec in QBO.
More info about QBO? Click here.
Dext
Jeff’s filing cabinet on steroids. A de-cluttering miracle worker.
Capture, fetch, file, auto-publish receipts.
Hello! Well, duh, Jeff used to have a truck (and dresser, pockets, little boxes…) of receipts everywhere. I mean everywhere. With no system for filing them or letting his bookkeeper – aka wife – know they existed.
Imagine expense report and credit card reconciliation time at our place. The 5th of every month was not a great time for our marriage. Now he’s the king of snap & chuck. Like actually in the trash, not his backseat. Dext has literally cleaned up Jeff’s act.
Of course, the benefits of Hubdoc go far beyond receipt capture, but for Jeff and me, just this one aspect has been a game-changer for our relationship and for creating bulletproof books for Calmwaters Fly Fishing.
17Hats
Parksie’s get-your-act-together app.
Lead capture, email-invoice survey templates, calendarizing and workflows.
This program has so many more features than Jeff utilizes, but what it is doing for him is awesome anyway. He is “on the river” most days from April to December, and when he’s engaged with his guests, he is certainly not going to be on his phone responding to leads or taking calls. And he doesn’t “have people for that.” That’s a whole other story, given what his lovely wife does for a living.
At any rate, we have set up lead capture with auto-replies and workflow to make prospects feel cared for and to keep them engaged until Jeff can get back to them. The email, survey and contract templates combined with workflows for standard messaging, booking confirmations, waivers and event reminders are terrific. And so is the canned river day follow-up, with the ability to add pictures of the river day for the client.
Apparently, Fly Fishing Guides and their guests are intensely photo-driven.
So there’s the story of #ParksiesAppPack and how his embracing them has helped him, and I manage his business in an efficient, bullet-proof and argument-free way.
He has some pet social media apps as well, Instagram being his hands-down favourite. Please refer back to the earlier comment about photo obsessed fishing community. And he’s good-ish on Facebook, but we are still wrestling with his under-blogging ways.
He’s our music man at home, running our Spotify, AppleMusic, Sonos and Alexa apps.
Check off my list.
The reason he is so great at the apps outside of his business, though, comes from learning to embrace the technology he needs to run his business. Maybe this is an element of the whole work-life balance discussion?
At any rate, I loved his journey through this, and it has helped me immensely in my business of developing workflows and introducing apps and programs to my business clients. The big takeaway is that I need to be cognizant of the specific needs of each of my business customers and the expectations & limitations of the owners.
And of course, it always ends at my favourite mantra:
“Change is hard. Not changing will be harder”
Simply yours, Kellie :-}
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