Episode 4: Digital Disorganization Is Costing You – Shawn Lemon Shows How to Fix It

Welcome to another episode of The Franchise Business Radio Show powered by the franchise sisters and sponsored by their company, franchise intellect, a consulting firm that provides knowledge of the franchise community and thoughtfully aligns aspiring, ambitious entrepreneurs with the right franchise, investigate before you invest by contacting the franchise sisters.

Good day. Pamela curry here, host of the Franchise Business Radio Show, and here on the show with us today is my business partner, my sister, as well as my co host. This our first time being on the Franchise Business Radio Show, and I’m excited to introduce Sherry curry. Sherry. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much, Pam. It’s great to be here on the podcast. As Pam mentioned. My name is Sherry curry and yes, Pam and I are sisters and in business together.

That’s right. Hashtag, franchise, franchise sisters. That’s right.

Obviously not the Kelsey brothers. Let’s get that straight. Let’s go ahead and talk about the Franchise Business Radio Show. The Franchise Business Radio Show was intentionally designed. It was designed with the mission of bringing together business professionals to connect, educate and collaborate, to serve the franchise community and those considering franchise business ownership. Now on today’s show, very transparently shared that this is something that will help anybody on a personal level as well as a professional level. And I’m just going to give one word as a hint, and that one word is organization. Uh, Sherry, why don’t you? Are you organized enough? Why don’t you tell us a little bit about little bit about our our guest

organization is questionable, but I can absolutely tell us who’s on the show today. So on our show today, we have Sean lemon, the digital organizer. Welcome

Sean. Thank you. It’s good to be with guys.

Oh, it’s great, great. Great to have you on the Franchise Business Radio Show. So to get started, I would like to share with our listeners a little bit about your background. Sean is the founder of the digital organizer, and has spent the last 17 years helping individuals and businesses get better at using their technology. Sean has told us he is a teacher at heart. Sean, what do you believe is the biggest reason people struggle with their tech? I

think it’s trying to organize everywhere. We’ve got multiple email accounts. We have multiple cloud spaces where we’ve got files stored on our desktop and our documents folders and other folders that we don’t know about on the computer, and Dropbox, iCloud. I mean, it’s all over the place, and and then, not only that, people are organizing files in in Slack or in Microsoft Teams. It’s just it’s too much, and with too many tools, means that we’re having a look in so many different places, and it’s really a jumbled mess. You know, if we take a look at or if we were to wave a magic wand and turn our digital workspace into a physical one, how many different places would we have to go to find things? I mean, it would be, we’d be stumbling over everything. It would be really inefficient, and it’s because we don’t dedicate specific places and really kind of design what our digital workspace could look like, and that’s the biggest thing, is stop organizing everywhere, focus on a couple places, and then you’re setting yourself up for success.

This sounds like a very much needed topic, and I’m excited to learn more. But before we get started, just on a thumb note, I would like our listeners to get to know you a little bit better. So I’ve got a question for you, when you’re not helping businesses operate more efficiently, how do you like to spend your time?

Well, the majority of the time is with my wife and two year old Nico. My wife is Madeline, and Nico’s my son, and he is just at the age where language is coming so fast, and he’s like, running all over the place and really engaged. And it is just an absolutely fascinating time. So I’m loving that. And then once he goes to bed, I’m usually making pottery in the studio behind my house. Oh, wow.

Very, very cool. Um, alright, I’m going to share with you, Sean, as you were talking, there were a couple things that popped up in my head. Which one was I first I felt my stress level going higher and higher when, you know, all the digital chaos out there, I was like, ah. And. And then all of a sudden, you brought me down a couple notches when you started talking about the personal side of things and and finding that life balance and all of that. So thank you for that. I think I can breathe again.

Well, this is all about being able to do the life stuff like, why do you are you considering a franchise your Corp in the corporate world, it’s running you ragged, and you want more time and freedom, financial freedom and time freedom. You know, it’s family life. Being able to do our hobbies like this is what we’re what we’re really working this hard for, is to be able to have these other things. So I’m glad that calmed you down.

Absolutely. Well, you know what? I have to say, that your business adds the digital organizer really states what it is that that you do and what you offer. Can you take us to the client side help? Just help us understand what does a typical client look like yeah and yeah, what? How are you helping them?

Yeah. So most people find us because they are lost. They’re lost in their data. And we’ve hit a point where, where people used to be afraid of data loss because our computers crashed and we didn’t have backups. Now we’re experiencing data loss because we have so much of it. We’re being bombarded with so many emails, and most of our people are getting at least 100 emails a day, and often more. And how are you supposed to keep up? And on top of all of the communication with real people when they’re having to sort through everything else, how can you feel in control of your life when there’s just so many open loops? So email is usually a really big one. The other one is file structures is just, you know, especially when they’re working with a team, nobody can find what they’re looking for quickly, and so they’re having to lean on senior staff to find out where the bodies are buried. Of, oh, yeah, we used to use base camp, and we still have stuff over there, but the rest of it’s in Google Drive. Oh, but we have a few things in Dropbox. So it’s those are the two really big scenarios. And then once they start working with us, then we start getting into project management and building systems. So it’s like, Oh, you do this over and over again. Let’s create a checklist. Let’s put all the instructions in there. So when you onboard someone, you just say, Hey, this is where you go. And here’s the instructions, and here there’s some videos and everything. And so we help kind of people calm the chaos, and then from there, build systems to make everything easier and more collaborative,

that that sounds outstanding. And Sherry,

come to your house. Sherry has, by the way, she is married and has three boys.

Chaos, right? Yep,

that’s my middle name, chaos,

but, but yeah, but I’ve also been in corporate America, and I know exactly what you’re talking about, when information is located on different servers and trying to find it in an efficient way so you can get your job done. That makes a lot of sense. You know, technology has been around for a long time. Then again, it hasn’t been around for a long time. How did you get into this?

Well, I worked at the Apple Store for seven years. I got hired for the iPhone launch, actually, which is a really interesting perspective of being there for the first like real smartphone launch, and seeing the App Store develop and in the products grow. It’s like Dropbox didn’t even exist when I first started this journey, and now everything is cloud based for our file systems. So seeing kind of that progression is was really interesting. But I just saw so many people overwhelmed as they would come in, they’d get this new Mac, and whether it’s coming from an old, old Mac to a new one, or coming from Windows to Mac, when they would get this data transfer, everything got dumped into a new place, and I was tasked with teaching someone how to use it, but people had a hard time learning how to use something when they were overwhelmed by the mess. Not everyone there. There are the outliers out there, and that’s why sometimes it’s actually a harder sell for CEOs or directors, because they’re bullish, and it’s just like, give me a problem and I’m going to hammer through it and forget all the distractions. I will get it done. But a lot of people out there really struggle with with the chaos, and that needs to be taken care of, to then be in a more receptive mode, where they can start to learn, and once I could help people get organized, then the learning came so much faster, and they became proficient quickly. So that’s why I’m a teacher. Hard of I want to see you actually learn this and be set up for success, but I also understand that you getting from chaos to order is a tall ass. Ask for a lot of people, and there are varying degrees of help that people need. And so it’s been a journey over the past 10 years, since I left Apple, to really kind of settle on the model that we have now of helping people, you know, get to the finish line. Wow,

you kind of said a couple key words there that stuck out to me and our my sister and I’s background as well, and that is technology and how much change right has been that space and learning right, the learning around it, and being an educator, we have a background in education. Matter of fact, here’s a quick story prior to becoming a franchise consultant, sort of my launch franchise business community, as I actually was with an organization was a franchisor, and what they did was end user software training. And I’m going to really date myself here, because we’re talking about how technology changes. Back when it was dos right, we had the Disk Operating System, and when we were shifting into Windows, we thought for sure, wow, this is going to kill our training business. Software is going to be so user friendly. No, it made our business explode, because change and technology requires to your point, training and organization and processes. You know,

a lot of people, it’s scary for a lot of people, like learning something new. It’s just, I think the biggest thing that I hear, or the most common thing that I hear, is, I don’t want to screw it up, and it’s just like, it’s just, I don’t want to mess it up. I’m scared I’m going to screw it up. And, you know, and that’s often the biggest hurdle is, no, you can do this, and it’s just about understanding panics.

Yeah, I follow you. Okay, so obviously, this is very relevant to our audience, our franchise, business world today, and getting started with the franchise, it’s a lot to get done. Right? Kind of alluding to there. What would you recommend to someone on getting started,

yeah, well, I would say get your get your accounts in order now, like if you’re feeling overwhelmed with email right now, learn how to manage that better, because when you get dumped into a or when you are given a whole set of tasks and a lot of things to do to get a business up and running, there’s a lot of communication that needs to happen, and there’s a lot of tasks that need to be fulfilled, and in just a lot of moving pieces. And so the more you can get organized and educate yourself now, then when you are excited and ready to roll, and you’ve signed that contract agreement, and you’re being the list, given the list of tasks of what you’re going to do, you want to be able to hit the ground running and not be overwhelmed. And by simply just having a new email address to funnel everything through, isn’t quite good enough, like that’s just one more thing on the plate. And a lot of people are tempted to just, oh, open up something new and just have everything separate from there. But that’s actually, in reality, not how it works. We have a personal email address the and people are still going to be communicating with us from there. You may accidentally send an email from your personal address instead of work. And who’s never done that, you know it happens, and you really don’t want to miss things. So the more you can just get prepared of where are my personal files if you’re going to do or if you need to do financing, there’s a whole lot of documents that you need to pull together in order to present that to the SBA, or whoever you’re you’re working with to get funds. So start pulling things together. Get Organized now, so that before you start your search, or while you’re on your search, you’re really preparing yourself to get going, and you’ve relieved yourself of a lot of just background anxiety that you may not even realize exists from, you know, the disorganization that we’re all just used to having, yeah, yeah. And it’s actually kind of hard to, hard to quantify where you’re at now, because so many people it’s like, you know, yeah, I’ve got 2000 unread emails in my inbox. But it doesn’t really matter. I like, I see the number, and it’s no big deal. I get in my email, and I, you know, I check and see what I need to do, I get it done. And whatever it’s it’s just its own thing. But then I challenge those people and say, Let’s go through the process and clear this out and show you how to get. Inbox Zero and stay there, or at least close to it. You don’t have to be perfect, but just so that things don’t fall through the cracks. Yeah, and the difference that people just like, I had no idea how much that stressed me out. So get some of that stuff taken care of now, if you can and and that’s really going to set you up for success later on down the road. Email files, that’s great, and then project management is later on down the road. But you can do a lot of project management with through email if you do it well and just have some good triaging skills.

Yeah, that I don’t think any of any of us can’t relate to what you’re saying right now. Email a box very, very full. And then what happens is she put it in a folder called unread. It gets bigger and bigger because you never get there. So I think everybody could use a lot of help in that area. And then, kind of like you said, navigating it into the business world and project management. So I’m just going to open up that door again to you a little bit more. You know, you’ve been great about explaining how you help people kind of implement that digital organizational skill, starting out with email, and I’m sure there’s a lot more to that. Can you help tie it a little bit more with business, specifically the franchise community? Or is that pretty independent, or can they kind of all relate to one another?

They all relate to one another because they’re all the core skills. But still, business is another level and more so when it comes to files and project management, because we need to build things in a way that allows for good collaboration. And so in some cases, the file management is like the principles that we teach, and some of the stuff that we help franchisees with is augmenting what the franchisor is giving you. And sometimes the franchisor kind of has their own stuff, but we really need to create our own space, our own playground, to have control of our own stuff. And sure, the franchisor is going to give us resources, but we can download those and put them in our own space, organized in the way that we work, in saving the documents that we actually use most and so there’s a difference same principles of creating a good naming convention, a good folder structure, but we really organize based on the roles people fill and and the tasks that they’re doing. That’s how we set up our folder structure. So when we bring someone new onto our team, it’s very clear what top level folder we need to share with someone so they have access to everything the first time around, and then that needs to tie into project management, because we really have three core pillars of of the stuff we do every day in business, that’s communicate, access and save files and keep track of the tasks that we’re supposed to be working on. And those things are constantly interrelating, and we need to integrate them. And so we need to use business level tools. So that means we don’t use an email address that ends in gmail.com we we purchase, if you like, the Google environment, we would do Google workspace. And so you purchase your own domain, you know, the digital organizer.com, and then we have, we create email addresses at that domain, which means, when we hire someone and give them an email address, we can reset that password, we can lock them out of their accounts, we can transfer what they own to the person who replaces them, or to their direct supervisor. So then we get control of it and and everything is so much easier to manage from there and then, if we’re using the cloud, then we don’t have to deal with versions. Who’s got the who’s got the most recent version of that contract? No, we only work on one contract and one version, and we send that link to people via email. Slack, we put that link in project management and Trello, Asana, whatever you’re using, so that we’re all using one centralized place to store things, and that’s how it works together. And those principles apply personally as well, but it’s definitely the next level in business.

Okay? Sean Sherry, we’re gonna have to, I cannot wait to access your your library of resources, because Sherry and I obviously work together. We live in two different cities, and we try to create this system for all of the things you were just sharing. You’re going to see some rut rows. It’s the end of this already. Yes, but let me, let me stay on track here. I Let’s talk about again. You know, business owner. Ownership. And, you know, obviously, a big key to getting a business established is getting involved in a community, especially as a local franchise, right? You you want to get involved in the community. And once again, I’m going to date myself. You know, historically, you know, getting involved in the community was very much, face to face, Chamber of Commerce, business networking events, all of which, by the way, still exist today and are good, but take take us to a new level. What is the approach with the new tools that we have available to us today?

Yeah, I think we still incorporate what you’re talking about, because there’s nothing like meeting someone, shaking hands, establishing rapport and creating just that, that connection in person. But it’s with all of the other tasks we need to be able to keep track of it. And so there are different systems that you can use for this. You can use a CRM, if you’re if you’re good with a CRM, you can actually create that for the return recurring tasks and things that you want to attend or do, or outreach and things like that. And so that can be a great place, or that might be in project management. And so project management is software like Asana Trello, clickup, monday.com, this, these types of things. They’re phenomenal for so many different uses and and from the quarterly tax filings that need to be done, what website? What are the instructions for getting that done? To your outreach. And so I would have a project specifically for outreach in the different areas, and maybe one section is for local outreach, and then others would be, you know, cold email introductions, and you know, different things like that. And so that you can keep track of it, and you can put it on a schedule. So when I check off, you know, the quarterly tax filing for q2 then it’s going to repopulate with next year’s date for q2 and so there’s some stuff that it’s just so easy to stay on top of it and and that’s really what everyone is asking for when they come to us is, in the end, if I could wave a magic wand and and and be thrilled after the work is done, I want to know what I’m supposed to be working on every morning. And if you do project management, well, you open up your project management first, and that tells you what you’re supposed to be doing for the day, and in for all the routine things, and then the big rocks as well. If you’re you know, in the US system, you can build all out all of your goals in there as well. So wow,

that’s, yeah, that that. It sounds great, but when we get into technology as we all know it, can it can feel overwhelming the build out, the build out feels overwhelming with the hope of the simplicity of the end. So my, my question to you is, yes, at what point do you just need to step back and say, I need an IT partner, yeah, to help me do this. And this is something that you can help people out with.

Yeah. So when do you need an IT partner? There’s actually two different, two different sections to that. First, I would say ours, where we sit is actually right in between it and operations. We have a background in it, and our focus is on operations in making sure that both of those things are working well together. And if you do those well and you’re using good products, you actually don’t need an IT and a traditional IT partner for a while, you can get away with hourly, once you have, if you’ve got a lot of IT issues and you really need someone to take care of things then, then having an IT partner can be great for that. But I would say, start with organization and doing that well, and you get all your onboarding, and you use less tools and so, and then we can create a project for you. Of here’s all the instructions of how to onboard someone so that someone tech savvy on your team can handle it. So we have a few different resources to get help. And I would say, Come to someone like us. There are very few people out there who are doing this, but I’d say come to the digital organizer, because we’ve got a resource library where you can self implement, if you feel confident tech wise, or if you have someone on your team who’s confident with tech stuff that they can go in and self implement, and then we’ve got two levels of help with implementation. It’s like, I’m pretty good, but I need to be pointed in the right direction, and I need, I need to be able to solve some problems and talk to somebody about it. But in the end. I can get a lot done myself, or have someone on the team who can get a lot done that’s one level, or I need a lot of help implementing, you know, can you help me with that? So that’s, that’s some of the resources that we have available, so that you can really avoid hiring an IT company, especially like that, monthly managed services that you’re going to get varying degrees of support from that. You know, if you ever are looking for someone, email us and we can help you find, you know, somebody good, or managing your your actual hardware and stuff like that. But, yeah, I’d say organization first, and we’ve got a lot of templates. Plug and Play. You import the stuff and then you just run it and adapt it, and we can help you adapt that. Sorry, long answer,

yeah. Oh, fabulous, yeah. Well, I think we would all agree with this, you know, conversation organization and project management, that we need to have an action step. What’s the biggest thing Sean, the biggest thing that our listeners can do to give themselves more time mental clarity, so when they are ready to take that leap into franchise business ownership, they are ready to roll,

yeah, I would say, get your email in order now and organize your personal files. And so taking action on this, what I want you to do is go to this will be in the show notes, but the digital organizer.com/franchise, biz with a Z, B, I Z, and what I have there is a discount code for the resource library. I want you to get your hands on this so that you can go in, do the email training, do the files? Get as much training as you need to to get this under control and work with us, if you want to from there, but if you want to self implement and at least, like get your hands on it. I’m going to give you 50% off discount code to just get that so that you can get rolling. And in addition, I’ve got a free guide whether you want to purchase or not. I’m going to give you a free guide to how to organize your personal files. And so, you know, getting getting a collaborative space for your family. So this is like a good trial run of figuring out what platform do I feel comfortable with, and here’s how we build out a folder structure, and start thinking about what do I need to put together to share with my spouse, if you know, if you’re with someone and and get some experience doing that, and get your own files together in order. But I’ve got a fantastic, beautiful guide for this, with videos that are that you can click on that will show you the process of me explaining the naming convention and stuff like that. So got a got a lot of good stuff in there for you, just for free to to get you kicked off.

Thank you for that, for the discount. And I actually because I’m probably showing my need for technology organization here, but I did put in the notes. I don’t know if our listeners or viewers would be able to see this, but it’s the digital organizer.com, forward slash, franchise, biz, B, I Z Yep, got it all right. Fabulous. Thank you. You’re welcome. Yeah.

Thank you, yeah. Thank

you. Sean, this, this has been great. Keyword organize. That’s your starting point, and then you can launch from there with confidence, I’m sure. However, if you are considering pursuing franchise ownership, please don’t try to figure it out all on your own,

agree. Sherry, agree. Gosh, over the many years of being in the franchise business community, we want to pay it forward to aspiring entrepreneurs. We know that there is great value in receiving guidance on franchise selection, helping you be further effective in doing your due diligence and sincerely believe in the motto, investigate before you invest. So let us help you. Let us, let us guide you on that. The goal is position where you are able to make an informed decision and avoid costly pitfalls. So we want to help you do that. It’s very easy to do. Simply contact us. And this is gonna be a little embarrassing, Sherry, but contact us at Franchise intellect for a complimentary franchise consultation. Call and Sherry. Tell them how to get in touch with us. Of course,

you’re gonna let me do that. Thanks. Pam. All right, simply go to www dot franchise intellect.com or email us at franchise intellect@gmail.com

Oh boy. Well, we we really look forward to hearing from you again if you would like to receive a complimentary franchise consultation and some assistance in navigation. In the process of franchise selection to make an informed decision and dodge costly errors, we definitely are here for you again. This is the Franchise Business Radio Show. Thank you for joining the franchise sisters and Sean lemon on this episode of Franchise Business.