Aug. 7, 2024

The Secret to Saving Thousands: Business Efficiency Hacks

Show Notes
Transcript

Join Divya Parekh and Tina Palmgren as they reveal how to identify and stop unproductive time and money leaks in your business. In this episode, you'll discover Divya's unique branded system, the 5 Simple Steps to EXCEL profits, designed to streamline operations and boost profits. Learn how to automate tasks, make informed decisions, simplify administrative efforts, and save thousands annually. Tune in for actionable tips to transform your business and maximize efficiency!

Beyond Confidence is broadcast live Tuesdays at 10AM ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Beyond Confidence TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).

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The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are

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solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not

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This is Beyond Confidence with your host W Park. Do

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you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do you

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want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional,

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and financial goals? Well? Coming up on voparks Beyond Confidence,

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you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers

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who have stepped into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and

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are living the life they want. You will learn how

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relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals.

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Moving your career business forward does not have to happen

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at the expense of your personal or family life or

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vice versa. Learn more at WWWA You Don't Divpark dot

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com and you can connect with div ant contact at

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divpark dot com. This is beyond confidence and now here's

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your host, div Park.

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Good morning listeners, and it is wonderful day because it's

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usday morning and I get to be with you. So

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I want to share something beautiful. I was walking out

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out and about in the morning and this summer has

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been very humid, more so than usually in North Carolina,

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and I see these two young gentlemen in the Morte

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card on the trail and they're going into the bushes

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coming out, and I just stopped and asked them, like,

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you know, what they were doing. And what they shared

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was that in preparation of Debbie, as Debbie the Storm

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makes her way from Florida through South Carolina to North Carolina,

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they were looking at, like you know, the pipelines and

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the sewer lines, that everything was safe and if there

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were any trees that could fall down upon it, they

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would go and cut it. So here I was already

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thinking in my head, oh gosh, this is so humid,

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and I can get ah to the ac of my

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car and here's um Like you know, all these thoughts

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are going in my head, and when I see these

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two young gentlemen out there spending the whole day to

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make sure that we are stafe, that not only the

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trails are not flooded, but there's so many different houses

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that are next to these trails that if they don't

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take care of it, then the houses and the low

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lying areas could get flooded. And I'm telling you what

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happened was it just brought me back to being grounded

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that how thankful I am that instead of having these thoughts,

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be grateful for what we have nowt So, I thank

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them for their kindness and for the jobs they do.

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And I want to thank you for getting our books,

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because through our books, not only you can change your life,

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you can impact others. And you're also helping us help

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entrepreneurs across keyboard dot org. So let's bring in our guest.

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Welcome Tina, Good morning, Thank you, Devia, grateful to be here.

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Well, it's awesome to have you. So tell us do

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you recall a moment from your childhood, whether there was

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a person or a situation or an event that left

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a positive mark on you that caused me what that

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left a positive mark?

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Oh that left a positive mark? Oh yeah, definitely, there's

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so many. One of them is my mom's best friend.

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She was just the neatest lady. She has since passed,

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but when I was very young, I had open heart

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surgery and I would have to go down and have

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checkups every once in a while, and she was just

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so bubbly all the time and never treated me as fragile.

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And I think that's the biggest thing in my life

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is that nobody, even though I had open heart surgery

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as a young baby and people told me I was

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lucky to be alive, nobody told me that I couldn't

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do something, that I could do anything. And she was

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one of my biggest cheerleaders for that, And I think

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that's really why today I'm still healthy. I have no

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health issues and my heart is fine, because everybody gave

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me that knowledge that I could do anything.

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And that's powerful, that you could do anything exactly exactly.

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And we are glad that you know you're doing healthy

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and leading the way for others to see that, yes,

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you can go through the tough times, yet you can

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emerge strong and resilient. So when you were a little girl,

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I know you delve into numbers. Right now, what number

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is your favorite? Since you were a child, or was

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that something you developed the interestingly drawn in your life? Now?

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It's always very good at math. I remember winning a

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math competition in third grade. We had little cars and

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to put them up like acrost a racetrack, and I won,

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and the boys were all mad at me because I

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beat all the boys, but I was They just came

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natural to me. Words not so much. Writing, spelling not

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so great at I'm okay, But thank God for spell

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check and for Grammarly and all the other things we

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have now that help us.

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Right, absolutely, So as you grow up better, the interest

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and the numbers take you.

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Well. When I was in college, I had a scholarship

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for two years at a community college in my next

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to my hometown, and I'm like, well, I got to

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take advantage of that. Why would I waste that? And

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one of the teachers there said, you know, you'd be

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really good at accounting. Like okay, So my major ended

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up to be accounting. I was really good at it,

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and I still am really good at it, but I

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found I did not like it. Did it for twenty

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plush years, but really hated the month end and all

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the stuff that repeated all the time. It was just

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but I got very good at it, and I found

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ways to streamline that. So that's what I ended up doing.

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How can I make it easier for me every month?

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How can I make it so somebody else could do

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it if something happened to me, Because in a couple

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of workplaces, we had people that all of a sudden

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passed away and or left, and you know, you were

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stuck trying to figure out what they did. So I've

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always wanted to make sure that if something happened to me,

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somebody else could step in and do my job, because

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I created processes that were very easy and very well documented,

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so anybody could do them. And that's what I do today.

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Oh, that's that's very powerful to have. There are so

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many entrepreneurs there are, regardless whether entrepreneurs, where they're in

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the corporate world, wherever you are at. What happens is

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that there are so many repetitive tests they're what you're

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doing is you're just doing things the old way. So

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can you share Let's say, whether it's a season entrepreneur

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or biginner, how would you tell them that, what are

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a few steps that they can take today to streamline

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their operations?

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Well, one of the things you want to do is

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document your process, because if you don't have it documented,

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it's not going to get done the same way all

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the time, and that's where errors start to happen. So

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one of the things that Excel does is you can

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create a macro by recording it. Now, it doesn't always

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work just by recording it. There's some tweaks that have

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to be done behind the scenes, so sometimes they don't

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actually work really well unless you know what you're doing

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with them. But that is a great way to get

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a lot of information done very quickly. So thinking about

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those repetitive tasks, what is the task that takes the

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most time? What are you what's the one you dread?

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Oh my god, what's the one you hate doing? That's

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the one you want to get automated because, let me

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tell you, it takes away that stress of doing doing it.

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It makes it accurate and you can hand it off

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to somebody else or you can still do it because

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now it's easy and quick because it's done for you.

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But it's paying attention to those those things that are

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typically what's the bottleneck in your business, and typically it

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comes down to us, right, it's something we're doing that's

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taking too much time, or we're spending time that isn't

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in our own wheelhouse, and that's where we're wasting time

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and money.

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You have had so many years of experience, so can

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you share a few examples so that people can resonate that.

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Oh yeah, you know Tina talked about this situation. It

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matches exactly mine, exactly.

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So back in my corporate days, one of them, several

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of them. There are so many, but as an accountant,

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I always found errors and I would always dig deep

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to figure out where the errors were come from, and

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just thinking about, Okay, how can I fix this? How

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can I work with the people that are doing whatever

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they're doing. So I would just go out and say, hey,

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something's not coming through right, and can you show me

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what you do? And they would show me and I

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would see it and it's like, oh, now I get it.

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So I would make One of them was in a

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shipping department. They were we'd ship out our parts, and

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they didn't have the right numbers because there was two

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different columns in our process. One was shipped and one

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was made, and they had to compare those numbers and

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they were like four columns apart and at eight looks

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like a nine when you're just glancing down, so you

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didn't see it. So I just made a little system

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that they would run. Took them all of maybe five

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seconds to run it, but it made it accurate for

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them because it took those two columns and subtracted one

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from the other, put in a dash if it was zero,

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and a number if it was off. So by having

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that number, they need to go check them. So what

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happened with that one It made our parts accurate, But two,

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it saved our accounts Payable department an hour and a

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half a day on one vendor's invoice because it was

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so large every day. Because now it was accurate, we

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weren't having to stop and look for things, you know.

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Another example is a monthly one. That one was a

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daily one. So a monthly one was a client doing taxes.

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Monthly taxes he had to do out of state, and

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he was didn't know how to get the information out

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of his system. He was using quick books. So one

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I taught him how to do that, but then we

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downloaded all the information into Excel and I created a

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process for him to use that he was a four

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hour process each month. Now he was done in ten

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minutes because Excel automated. It took out the human error

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of calculation because he had to calculate numbers based on

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what was sent and had to do conversions and that

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was all now done for him. And he's like, I

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don't even need to do that taxes out of my

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state anymore because he has a distributor. He's a a microbrewer,

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but he still uses it because he gets his his

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Wisconsin stuff done so quickly. So it's it's just things

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that things that take time that are out of your wheelhouse.

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They may be out of your wheelhouse, maybe not, but

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still if it's it's something that's repeatable, we can automate

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a majority of it.

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So you mentioned something about in state and out of state,

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so a lot of people are very very skeptical about

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or you know, hends of like, oh, I don't like numbers.

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So tell us, like, for an entrepreneur, what are the

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key things in their operations and their cash flow that

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they need to pay attention.

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To well when they need to pay attention to their

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income and expenses. So many people do not know where

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they stand each month, and that's scary because you're not

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making good decisions based on your own business, you know,

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and you're not seeing trends that are happening because you're

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not looking. And it can be it doesn't have to

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be hard. It can be pretty easy to get that information.

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But if you're not looking at that information, come the

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end of the year, if you've had a ton of

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sales and not all that many expenses, you're going to

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be paying a lot more in taxes. So you may

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want to invest in something before the end of the

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year to cut your tax rate, you know, so you

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might be able to buy some new equipment, or buy

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some software, or buy some training, or do something that's

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going to help you with your tax bill. The other

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thing is you can see trends and expenses. Maybe you

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miss something or maybe you we're double charged for something.

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So if you're paying attention to that on a monthly

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basis and looking year to year, you can analyze and

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see that information of what's missing or what may have

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been doubled up for you. So it's it's really knowing

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and it empowers you to have have that knowledge. So

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it's allowing you to run your business the best that

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it can be and you know where you're at. So

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you have peace of mind, you know, you take away

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that scariness of your of not knowing like oh my god,

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I'm going to have enough to pay this bill this month.

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That all goes away because it puts you in charge

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of your money.

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M So what I'm hearing is that it's important to

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not only keep track of your expenses and income every month,

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which is really important, but also to look at your

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numbers and see what are the trends, if any trends

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that you are seeing. So I definitely want to share

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my own story, Like you know, I agree with you.

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So when I had started up initially, see when you're

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in a corporate job, what happens is it's very simple.

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You get one paycheck and that's about it. And then

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like you're doing your monthly expenses, you have the budget spreadsheets.

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So I just kind of created a simple budget spreadsheet

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and it was easy to follow and keep track of things.

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Then when you start a business, there are so many

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different aspects, like you may have your website domain, and

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then there is your paying hosting fees. Then you're also

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paying for like if you have an LLC or C corp.

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There's so many different directions that you're doing so. I

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had no clues. I was just going and doing it.

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And I did that for a couple of years. And

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then I found my who is a very good friend

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of mine, my accountant, bookkeeper like whatever you want to

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call her, liked my financial advisor. Everything rolled into one

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and she said, this is a mess of you. And

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then as she started helping me it, it became very

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obvious that some projects were not doing well, some projects

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were doing well. So can you talk about some of

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the trends that you have you have observed for entrepreneurs

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that they should look out for.

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Well, absolutely, there's you know, so many different things that

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we should be tracking that we typically don't. And I've

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been guilty of it myself as well. You know, what

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are our actions that we're doing if we want to

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grow our sales and we want to hit our numbers.

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We can't make people buy, but we can track our actions.

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How many sales conversations are you having, how many reach

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outs are you doing, how many follow ups are you doing?

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Are you invite people? These are things that we can

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track that we control what we do, and lots of people,

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and myself included, until very recently, hadn't tracked any of

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that information, and that's really allowing me to take charge

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of my business and run the business the way I

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want it to be run. But trends with other things.

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When I was in corporate, one of the things that

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we did was track all of our production and if

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there was issues in production, and so every month I

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would create kind of like a dashboard of what was

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going on, and it was showing the errors that were happening.

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And what we would do is take that and then

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the place that had the highest errors that month, we

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would go out and look and see what was happening

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and we were able to fix the errors because we

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were looking at it, because we were aware of what

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was going on, and we are seeing those trends. So

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the next month we would see that one go down

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and then we'd pick the next highest one. So we

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were able to eliminate so many errors out in our

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production floor. We became very efficient and very It took

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away a lot of our overhead costs because we weren't

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we weren't having to throw away parts, we weren't wasting product,

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and so it really helped us have a bigger income

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because we were now able to sell that many more

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products and not throw stuff away.

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M hmm, definitely. And I like what you're talking about

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that it's not just about having the numbers and that

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Excel spreadsheet. It's also about taking every aspect of your

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business and putting it in a tracker and analyzing it

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because data speaks for itself. And as you're doing it,

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especially as you're about lead generation, it's just like sales calls.

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Like what you're doing is if you have that spreadsheet

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set up, like you're just dropping in and then as

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you're building your CRM and Excel and CRM is customer

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relationship management. Of course you can have something like that

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like as active campaign, constant contact. I mean, there's so

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many other things. But you can also go ahead and

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especially if you're starting out new, have that Excel spreadsheet

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as you're talking about, and see like you know, okay,

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how many followups did you do? Did you miss out

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on someone? Because that's what's going to help your business

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grow and scale. So tell us, like, and if somebody

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is trying to go ahead and create a spreadsheet, what

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are some of the mistakes void.

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A lot of mistakes that I see, and some of

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them may not be necessarily a mistake they're just not

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using Excel to its capacity. So one is they're not

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creating a table. So a table in Excel you physically

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have to go up on the home tab. There's a

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thing that says format as table. And what that does

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for you is it makes that section dynamic. So if

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you add Rose to it, it's automatically included, so you

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never have to worry about is my range right because

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it's a dynamic table. So it automatically does that for you.

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But it also has When you make a table, you

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get a tab called the table tools and so on.

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There is a total roll and what's really cool about

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the total row is it automatically will put in a sum,

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or you can change it to account, or you can

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create your own formula. But when you filter down to

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a specific item or group of items, it will change

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that total at the bottom to just be what's being shown.

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If you use a sum total, that is just going

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to always show the entire sum for everything, even though

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a bunch of it's hidden. This subtotal using the sum,

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it's a sub equal subtotal, and then it has a

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number for some and then it gives you the range.

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And what that does for you is makes your data

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so much easier to see because when you filter, like

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if you have a specific name or a program and

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you filter down to that, then you can see just

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data and it gives you the totals for all of

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that data alone. And that's huge because most people don't

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understand how to see that, so a lot of people

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waste a lot of time trying to get that information,

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you know, and it can be really fast and easy.

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Another mistake that I see is they'll put in a

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blank column or a blank row in the middle of

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their data. Excel doesn't like that so much, so you know,

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just make your columns a little wider, or if you

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want to see a little bit of space or something,

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but don't have anything blank in between your data. Because

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Excel doesn't like working with that so much.

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00:22:12.519 --> 00:22:16.480
Well, that is a very powerful nuggets that you have

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shad over there, because then what happens is like you know,

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what you're talking about, is that take pieces or portions

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of your business if you were to recap it, and

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as we look at different areas, document the process. Once

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you have documented the process, look at where the errors

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are happening, and where the errors are happening, fix it

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and optimize it and by doing this, you're creating efficiency.

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And when you create efficiency, have you seen like with

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your personal entrepreneurs and all that, like how they're finding

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more money in the business by being more efficient.

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Oh definitely, you know, and not just the money part

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of it, but it's the time that they take back,

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you know, because being efficient means hey, I don't have

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to spend this much more time on this project. I'm

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also not wasting all my mental energy on it because

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oh my god, it's quick and easy now. So one

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of the ladies that's using my Fortune follow up system,

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she's like, oh my god, my desk is clear. I

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don't have notes and papers all over my desk and

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I can find stuff she goes. It makes me look

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like a genius because she has her information just like

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that by just clicking a couple mouse buttons without having

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to Just before, she would flip through notepads and rummage

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through file folders, have to file stuff. She doesn't have

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to do any of that now because it's all right

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there at her fingertips, without that struggle or anxiety of

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looking for something and you can't find it because God

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only knows. I used to have, you know, I would

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have a notebook for different things. Well then your last minute,

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you run out and oh, I can't find the right notebook.

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The Secret to Saving Thousands: Business Efficiency Hacks

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