The Tech Smart Boss Podcast

Sometimes things can be a little overwhelming as an entrepreneur.  Things that you have to get done come at you fast and furiously.  And sometimes you just get in a rut and don't want to do anything,  especially when there are a lot of more fun things you could be doing, such as summer vacations.

In either case, you need to prioritize what is important and get done what matters, ideally quickly and accurately.  In this episode,  I go over my 4 steps to help plan what needs to get done each day and week,  which allows me to keep my sanity and be more productive so that I can have some downtime when needed.

https://www.techsmartboss.com/85

As a Tech Smart Boss, we're always working on improving our sales funnel (at least you should be).  But there are so many different ways to improve a sales funnel you have to be strategic in where you spend your time.  Typically, most businesses have a leak or are losing leads, in one of three areas.

In this episode, I give a high-level overview of what a sales funnel is and then take a deeper dive into the 3 most common problem areas and what you can do to fix them.

https://www.techsmartboss.com/84

If you're in the software business, everyone wants to know your roadmap.  And for good reason.  But many software vendors are hesistant to share information for a variety of reasons.

In this episode, I go over the do's and dont's for sharing your product roadmap and how to get the most bang for your buck if you do by capturing valuable feedback from your customers (and potential customers).  I also cover the piece of technology I currently use and share a few other technology providers you can check out for your product roadmap and feedback solution.

https://www.techsmartboss.com/83

One of the most common ways for a business to go bust is to run out of money or time before they find a winning customer acquisition method.  It's essential for a startup, but also for a growing business because the method to scale changes as your business matures.

In this episode, I go over 6 of the best ways to find customers for your product or service and walk through the thought process on which one(s) might be best for you right now.

http://www.techsmartboss.com/82

Almost every department in your business is obtaining signatures at some point or another.  Sales,  HR, Operations, all require either internal staff, partners, or customers to sign agreements.  Optimizing that document delivery and signature process is one of the best ways to leverage technology to do things faster and be more productive.

Some businesses are still thinking it's too expensive or not safe to work with digital signatures, and if that is you,  this podcast is for you.  In this episode, I go over the background of e-signature, where you can adopt it in your business, and some of the vendors to check out and their price.

http://www.techsmartboss.com/81

Running a subscription-based business with a recurring revenue model is the way to go these days if you ask me.  But if you are going to do it,  you have to keep a close look at some key metrics to make sure the health of your company is strong.  In Episode 60, I covered what I consider to be the most important things to monitor from a business operations perspective,  the leading indicators.

In this episode, I'm going to cover a set of metrics that apply to more established businesses, with enough customers and data to make them make sense,  but even if you are not there yet, you should know about them and establish a process and way to start calculating them (get in the habit).

They are Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), Churn, Lifetime Value (LTV), Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Average Revenue per Account (ARPA), and Quick Ratio.  In this episode,  I explain what they are and how you should use them.

https://www.techsmartboss.com/80

These days even if you are a responsible sender of emails, it's hard to avoid the spam folder.  Between over-aggressive spam gateways and e-mail providers trying to bubble up what they think is an important email or not,  odds are your email may not make it to the intended viewer's inbox.  There are some things that you should be doing to help prove you are a reputable e-mail sender and in many cases, small businesses are not taking advantage of those.

In this episode, I go over some of the key technical things you should do related to email authentication and security and also how you can test to see if your e-mails are going to look as safe as possible,  even when you are relying on a 3rd party email service provider.

http://www.techsmartboss.com/79

Being a Tech Smart Boss means one thing for sure, you will always love technology more than your employees.  It's something you have to keep in mind as you start to implement technology to your team.  Most rollouts of technology become shelfware, where the team never uses it to its full capacity (if at all).

In this episode, I go into the reasons why and how you can make sure you roll out technology and process in a way that sticks.  And as a result, you can achieve the growth for your business that you are looking for.

http://www.techsmartboss.com/78

I am a huge believer in using freelancers as much as possible in my business and I think you should be as well.  But you have to do it for the right reasons and you have to do it correctly, or it could cost you. Everyone has their freelancer horror story, which is why you may be hesitant to use them as much as you should.

In this episode, I go into the top reasons you should (and dare I say must), leverage freelancers to help grow your business and I'll give you some use cases that are appropriate for outsourcing to a part-time resource.

http://www.techsmartboss.com/77

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is going into effect on May 25th, 2018 and it seems like the entire Internet is freaking out about it.  If you are a small business that interacts with people that live in countries that belong to the European Union, then it applies to you.  And it holds the threat of penalties of 4% of your previous year revenues or $20 million euros (whichever is greater) if you are not in compliance.

My take, for the majority of small businesses, it's not something you need to worry about from a penalty perspective.  But you should worry about keeping your customer's data protected and GDPR may give you the reason and a good guideline how to go about doing it.

In this episode, I got into what exactly GDPR is, how it impacts your business, and what steps you should be taking to comply with it.

http://www.techsmartboss.com/76