Creating a "Garage" For Your Business
Episode 723: Show Notes
Today we're talking about creating an intranet (which we also refer to as a “garage”) for your company. This is separate from the project management of your day-to-day operations. This is more about setting the precedent for your company culture, creating SOPs, and focusing on other high level elements that are essential to the running of a successful business. You can think of it as Union Station for your team, your clients, and you!
Until we had an intranet in our business, we wouldn’t have known it was missing. Now, we can’t imagine ever living without it! It has been so useful in so many ways. At first we used it only internally, but then we decided to branch out and use it to enhance our clients’ experience, and the results have been incredible.
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Why We Love Notion
Once we had grown our business from just the two of us into a full team, we realized that there were a lot of different reference points, members on our team were struggling to find certain things, and everything was just becoming more chaotic than we would have liked. So, two years ago we began using Notion for our Boss Project intranet wiki, and we couldn’t be happier about it. Notion allows us to make updates in real-time and it is set out in a very user-friendly way. It’s as simple to edit as a Google Doc, but in terms of the layout, it feels more similar to a website. Also, there are over 500,000 Notion widgets like calendars and countdown timers. Essentially, Notion makes it easier for everybody in our business to do their jobs! What’s not to love?
Choosing A Project Management System That Works For You
In our opinion, you should make decisions about what systems to use in your business based on what feels the most intuitive for your brain! If you cannot wrap your head around how a particular interface works, you’re not going to be able to use it optimally, and then there’s no point in using it at all. Despite its enormous popularity, Basecamp as a project management system just doesn't work for us. If you have the brain of a coder, we would imagine that Notion could work well for your project management needs, but for us, Asana (which works very similarly to Trello) is everything we could ask for from a project management perspective!
Let’s Talk Costs
When you’re just starting out, or if you have a very small team, a free Notion account will probably be sufficient. You can share the account with your team via a shareable link, and they won’t need their own account to access the information. A benefit of this option is the added level of security it affords you, because you are the only person who can make edits. When our team grew to the point where our employees were building out their own sections of the company and needing to create their own profiles, we started paying for the premium service, and it is excellent value for money!
A Look Inside Our Playbook
In our playbook, we describe our mission, vision, and values. Our playbook is the place where we outline how we expect people to show up and what we don’t tolerate within our company. It’s very thorough, and it is something we reference regularly in our one-on-one’s with our team members. Our playbook also contains our team motto, team directory (in which we have every team members’ photo, bio, learning style, core strengths, and Enneagram style), the foundations of our company culture, the impact that we aim to create through our work, and more!
Quote This
You can’t over communicate when it comes to your team or your clients.
Highlights
Why We Love Notion [0:11:30]
Choosing A Project Management System That Works For You [0:24:17]
Let’s Talk Costs [0:28:03]
A Look Inside Our Playbook [0:30:28]
Today’s Guest:
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
The Strategy Hour Podcast is a twice weekly show hosted by Abagail Pumphrey and Emylee Williams, the founders of Boss Project. Join us for semi-ranty biz conversations for service providers looking to ethically grow their agency businesses. Episodes cover everything from lead generation to leadership mindset to team culture and beyond.
Key Topics:
Intranet, Reference, Notion, Communication, Company Culture, Asana, Playbook, Values
