How to Build & Lead a Healthy Remote Team with Amanda Garcia

If you're struggling to lead a remote team or wondering how to keep everyone productive from miles away, this episode is for you.

Learn the ins and outs of healthy remote team dynamics with Amanda Garcia, Founder & CEO of ColorWord Creative.

Amanda shares her journey through transitioning to remote work during the pandemic, along with the systems her team uses to stay connected and efficient. We cover everything from daily communication habits to the importance of hiring the right people.

And, we also look at the pros and cons of remote work, including how Amanda manages to create a strong company culture.

Don't miss out on Amanda's invaluable insights on managing a remote team effectively.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

• The importance of communication and setting expectations in remote teams
• Tools and systems for effective remote team management
• Tips for hiring and onboarding remote employees

Other Mentioned Links & Resources

Connect with Amanda and ColorWord Creative
https://colorwordcreative.com

Explore Asana, a Project Management Software
https://asana.com

Explore Slack, a Communication Program
https://slack.com

Explore Toggl, a Time-Tracking Program
https://toggl.com

Explore Loom, a Tutorial-Creating Program
https://www.loom.com

Explore Figma, a Whiteboard Program
https://www.figma.com

Learn More About Treefrog’s Small Business Marketing Resources & Services:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com

Receive 50% Off Your First Year of HoneyBook:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/honeybook-coupon-code

Save $20 on your first order from InstaCart
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/instacart-coupon-code

Join the Priority Pursuit Podcast Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/179106264013426

Follow or DM Treefrog Marketing on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefroggers

Follow or DM Kelly Rice on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefrogkelly

Follow or DM Victoria on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/victorialrayburn

Transcript

Amanda Garcia [00:00:00]:
If you are clear on your company culture and you are clear on your expectations and you get the right people on your bus, you don't have to worry about their productivity because they're doing work that they love most of the time and they're the right people and they have bought into your vision and they want to do their job. And if you hire people who want to do their job, then you don't have to worry about productivity. So I need my people to, to own their job, and my job is to set the expectation and make sure that they have everything they need to do their job.

Victoria Rayburn [00:00:39]:
Hey there. You're listening to Priority Pursuit podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners and leaders define, maintain, and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love. I'm your host, Victoria Rayburn, and I'm going to start this episode by stating something incredibly obvious. The way we work has changed drastically since 2020. Basically, employees experienced remote work as a result of stay at home orders. Many people loved it, and then they even decided they wanted to continue working remotely, permanently, or at least have hybrid options. While more and more employees are preferring and are even negotiating for remote work options, employers can also benefit by allowing their employees to work remotely. I mean, not only do they not have to pay for office space, but remote work allows businesses, both big and small, to work with qualified employees throughout the globe, around the world.

Victoria Rayburn [00:01:41]:
Basically, proximity is no longer an issue for attracting and retaining a talented team. That said, this change from in person to remote work seemingly happened overnight as a result of stay at home orders, and as a result, many businesses just didn't have time to think about what the culture of their workplace would look like long term. Today, I am thrilled to have Amanda Garcia on the show to break down how we as small businesses can build and lead healthy remote teams. With a background in marketing and nonprofit communication, Amanda is passionate about bringing brands to life through narrative. A leader in communication strategy and content development, Amanda coaches her mostly remote team to build consistently remarkable messaging that inspires action from customers and donors. She has a knack for drilling to the core of a client's identity or objective and distilling it into actionable, achievable steps to reach their goals. Super excited to talk to Amanda because so much of the work that she does is really similar to the work that we do at Treefrog. We align on so many things and I'm excited to have this conversation with her.

Victoria Rayburn [00:02:52]:
Amanda, thank you so, so much for joining us on the show.

Amanda Garcia [00:02:56]:
Thanks for having me, Victoria, it's really. I'm very excited to be here.

Victoria Rayburn [00:03:02]:
Well, I mean, I gave a very brief introduction, but I know that you and your team, you just serve small businesses in so many ways. So would you mind introducing yourself and. Yeah, just telling us. Telling us all the things, because I know after this episode, people are going to want to learn more from you.

Amanda Garcia [00:03:16]:
Yes. That was a pretty thorough introduction. My name is Amanda. I founded ColorWord Creative in 2016. And as you mentioned, we do very similar things as you all do at Treefrog. We specialize in messaging primarily and serving small to mid sized businesses and nonprofits. We do quite a lot with fundraising messaging as well. Love working with both the nonprofit and for profit world.

Amanda Garcia [00:03:41]:
I really believe that if you are doing something that's making the world a better place, marketing should never be a struggle, and we are committed to making that happen for our clients. So we are a full service marketing agency, but we always start every project with focusing on the messaging.

Victoria Rayburn [00:03:56]:
Oh, I love hearing, too, that you guys also start with messaging. We talk to our listeners about the importance of that all the time, and because we do that all the time, I will not harp on it right now. We will get into today's topic.

Amanda Garcia [00:04:09]:
Yes.

Victoria Rayburn [00:04:09]:
Well, Amanda, tell us about your team. Has everyone always been remote, or is this a decision like you made over time? Is it a COVID result? Yeah, just tell us where you guys are.

Amanda Garcia [00:04:20]:
I would say that the company has been through so many different iterations, and, you know, I started as a solopreneur, and then I actually had an office when it was just me, because I felt like I needed to leave the house and have a separate space for work. And I really loved that it was a place to host clients and things for meetings. And then as the team expanded, the first person that I worked with was actually my current communications director, Amy. And she at the time, was living in Switzerland, so that my first, she was remote because we were working in different countries and in very different time zones. That was 2016, 2017. And then I hired a graphic designer, and she was local, so she would work in the office with me. And we had some folks come and go again at the office. And then COVID came, and it did not make sense to keep the office open anymore because everyone was working remote anyway.

Amanda Garcia [00:05:19]:
So I did not renew that lease, and everybody just started working from home. There were only three of us that were full time at that time. And then in the middle of COVID actually near the middle of COVID that my full time creative director resigned partly because remote work didn't work well with her working style. She didn't like it. It wasn't, it didn't work for her. She really wanted to be in person, like, for her mental health. So that opened up a door because we thought, well, I guess we know that we can do this remote so we could hire from anywhere. And so Amy had a connection with a friend, someone they went to, she went to school with in Nashville.

Amanda Garcia [00:06:00]:
And we went through the whole interview process and hired her, I should say. I'm outside of Chicago, 30 miles west of Chicago. Amy is currently in Lexington, Kentucky. And then we hired Emily, our current creative director, and she was in Nashville. And I didn't even meet Emily face to face until she'd been with us for a year. And then the team started to expand, and we brought on a project manager, our operations manager, and she's in St. Louis, Missouri. And we just also hired an accounts manager, and she's in Chicago, so I get to see her more frequently.

Amanda Garcia [00:06:34]:
But, like, once a month, I would say maybe twice a month. There was always some remote component of our team, though it. It wasn't intentional. And now we've been fully remote since 2020, and the whole team has been remote since 2020. And we are in two different time zones, central and eastern. And, yeah, that's our team.

Victoria Rayburn [00:06:54]:
I love that. Thank you for breaking all of that down. I mean, I also love, like, oh, good for you guys. For, you know, already having remote, I mean, systems in place before all the COVID craziness happened, at least you already had an idea of where this needed to go.

Amanda Garcia [00:07:12]:
Don't give me too much credit, because there weren't a lot of good systems in place, and becoming remote forced us to put some good systems in place. I will say the transition was a little easier for us because we were used to working with at least one employee that was offsite. But there it was a learning curve for everyone. And we have come a long way in the way that we do things. So that's definitely true. We did not have it all figured out before 2020. And we're still learning. We're still getting better, we're still refining.

Amanda Garcia [00:07:38]:
It's a process.

Victoria Rayburn [00:07:40]:
Absolutely. Well, I very much appreciate the honesty there. And, I mean, as I at Treefrog, we. I would say about half of our team is remote. We do still have an office in Lafayette, Indiana, and I think three and a half of us work out of there on a regular basis, but most of us are in various places across the country. So, no, we 100% understand. I won't lie. I'm looking forward to this conversation, too, because it's like you've figured out remote work entirely.

Victoria Rayburn [00:08:07]:
So, yes, basically, I get really excited when I get to have a podcast episode where I get to learn something. So just as a heads up, we're gonna do this, and I'll probably tell the whole team, like, hey, we should all listen to this and go back and use Amanda's tips and tricks.

Amanda Garcia [00:08:19]:
Okay. I hope that it's useful. I really do.

Victoria Rayburn [00:08:23]:
But Amanda, what does a typical day look like for your team? Like, how are you guys communicating? How much communication are you doing?

Amanda Garcia [00:08:30]:
Typical day is hard to answer because it is all over the place. So I drop my kids off at the babysitter at 830 in the morning, and then the first thing I do every morning is I call our accounts manager. So I have a phone call with her at the beginning of every day. And that can last for eight minutes? It can last for 30 minutes. It depends on what needs to happen that day. And she is our newest employee. She is earliest in her career, so those calls are meant to help her get everything she needs to not be stuck in the day, to keep her moving, to keep her projects on track, to answer any questions that she has. So that has been a new thing, actually.

Amanda Garcia [00:09:09]:
And then throughout the day, all of us are on slack. So we're chattering all the time. Although one of our really important company values and team values is, is deep work. And we, another thing that we learned when we were all remote, we were always on slack and communicating all the time is that that can be very distracting. So we were very clear when, when we boiled down our core values and how we were going to respect each other's time is whenever somebody's working on a deep work project, they put a little deep work emoji up as their status on Slack. And we know they, we're not going to bother them. So, no, we're not going to. This is not, we're not going to slack them while they're working because we want to respect their deep work time.

Amanda Garcia [00:09:54]:
So we are on slack all the time. We also use. Is it okay if I'm talking about the tools, too? I know this. Does this apply? Absolutely, yes. So I know a lot of people use all different kinds of project management software. We use Asana and have invested quite a bit of time into learning how to make it work for us. You know, these project management softwares can be a beast. They are so powerful.

Amanda Garcia [00:10:23]:
And I feel like all the time, we're just scratching the surface of what they can do. But we use the comments in Asana a lot, and because of that, we don't email each other so that our inboxes are reserved pretty much for only client communication. So the quick conversations on slack and then the conversations we need to keep track of the information are in Asana. And then we have weekly meetings. So this is getting beyond the day to day.

Victoria Rayburn [00:10:49]:
I love it. Now let's keep going.

Amanda Garcia [00:10:51]:
Okay. Okay. We have weekly team check in meetings, and that is led by our project manager, and she runs through. What are we working on? What are we stuck on? What do we need to work out here? And I can tell you more about those meetings later if you want, because they're important to our team communication, I think. And then we are never afraid to hop on a huddle, ever, in slack or pick up the phone. I'm on the road a lot in the car, and my team knows if I've got a little car emoji up as my status on slack, they can just pick up the phone and call. And I always encourage those because it doesn't make sense to type about something if it's really quick and we need to work it out. Let's just have a conversation.

Amanda Garcia [00:11:31]:
So we hop on huddles and we make quick calls, too, throughout the day. That's pretty standard for our work days. As far as communication goes, what we do in a workday changes every day. And I don't know what everyone on my team does every single day. I can't tell you about their typical work day because all I know is how we're talking, what they're sharing, and what their statuses are. So, yeah, that's our standard daily communication.

Victoria Rayburn [00:11:58]:
No, I think that's great. And I really appreciate the fact that you guys have systems in place to give space for deep work to know. This is how you should contact somebody. This is when you shouldn't contact them. And, I mean, I think that when you have it set up that way, you're really enabling your employees to work however they need to work. And, I mean, I think that's also just another benefit of being able to work remotely. I mean, at least I know for us. I mean, we very much.

Victoria Rayburn [00:12:27]:
At Treefrog, it's pretty much all projects, like everything you're assigned one week, like it's due the following Monday, however you need to get that done in that week's time, have at it. But it just enables people to do better work and. But I really appreciate that you guys have systems in order to make sure that communication happens, you know, even if it is as simple as that morning phone call or then a once a week meeting. So, amina, can we talk about that really quick? What is your once a week production meeting look like?

Amanda Garcia [00:12:56]:
Yes.

Victoria Rayburn [00:12:56]:
Or I'm not sure if that's what you called it. My apologies.

Amanda Garcia [00:12:59]:
We call it a team check in, but it is a production meeting. That's exactly right. We have two weekly meetings. One of them is Monday afternoons. My team likes to have. Would rather they do better work in the morning, most of them. So they would rather have their morning to do work and then have a meeting in the afternoon, which works just fine for me. And we always start with cherries and pits.

Amanda Garcia [00:13:21]:
That is when the point of that is we just go around very quickly, and you're supposed to share one thing that you're happy about and feeling good about, and one thing that's kind of bumming you out. And it can be work. It can be personal, it can be big, it can be small. It can be that, you know, you're like, you got fresh flowers blooming in the backyard, and it could be that it's raining, or it could be that your dog got turned over by a car, or I won't share anyone else's personal things. But cherries and pits is how we always start. And the purpose of that is because we. Because we are remote. We don't know in passing.

Amanda Garcia [00:14:00]:
There's no body language. There's no subtlety in the community communication. So I don't know where everybody's head is unless I ask directly. And so the cherries and pits time is. So it's. It's a free time for you to share with the team anything that is relevant so that we understand where your head is that day. It's just a good check in so people can. People some.

Amanda Garcia [00:14:24]:
And I will say, Victoria, that is a part of the meeting that I never rush because we only do that once a week. So we try to keep our team check ins to 45 minutes, to an hour max. But if there's something going on that we need to be supporting each other or there's something really funny that happened, and we just won't need to laugh about it. I think that's such an important team building time because we don't have those water cooler conversations, so that's just. That's become a priority for me. So, cherries and pits. And then we run over the calendar for the week really quickly. If there's anything anyone needs to know.

Amanda Garcia [00:14:57]:
We go through client projects, figure out where we're stuck, and set priorities, and then we end always every week with something we call things we love, and everyone has a turn. So we one person, you end up doing it once a month about because it's one person each week and we take turns. And this started as something very silly where you were just supposed to pick one thing that you wanted to share with the team. And it has evolved, and I love it. It's become one of my favorite things about this meeting because everybody loves. It's such a fun way to get to know people's likes and preferences and taste. Sometimes they are themed, so like recipes, but like all the recipes for a dinner party that someone is planning or a media themed things we love. And here's the books, podcast, and movies and tv shows that I have to recommend.

Amanda Garcia [00:15:49]:
This month, there was a kick for a minute where everyone was doing their skincare routines, and I learned so much about everyone's skincare and products that I didn't know about. So things we love is another connecting point. But we feature one person at a time, and it's kind of like show and tell, and it gives us an update into who they are. So that's that weekly team check in meeting. It's work and connection time.

Victoria Rayburn [00:16:20]:
That is all so good. And I love also that you give those themes. I feel like we have actually talked about doing something similar, but then every time it comes up, like, oh, we should start doing that. And Kelly and I are like, we only, like, talk and live and breathe marketing. And this is a marketing team. And I don't know what else I would tell you, but I like the fact that you give them very specific themes. Like, let's get.

Amanda Garcia [00:16:41]:
No, no, no. I don't give them themes. They create the themes. Oh, they create the themes.

Victoria Rayburn [00:16:46]:
Okay, whoever gives the themes props to them.

Amanda Garcia [00:16:49]:
No, they just. They come up with them on their own. There are no rules for things we love. And if it really is, I only have one thing to share with you. I love lilacs. The end. If that's all you've got this week, that's fine. It's just become something really fun.

Amanda Garcia [00:17:03]:
Because, Victoria, you are so much more than marketing. I mean, if you found a new breakfast patriot that you love, or a new local coffee shop that you love, or if you saw a movie, or if you saw a tv show that you loved, or very fun around the Super bowl, the commercials that you love, if you're talking about marketing, and that's very fun share links. It's. You are. I think I like it so much because it is beyond what you do for work, and it is about who you are as a human, and it allows your team to get to know you beyond work in a way that makes things like, for example, birthdays easier to celebrate. So if I know that you like tea instead of coffee, then it's easier to buy you tea for your birthday and surprise you with that instead of coffee, which maybe would be disappointing. So I always appreciate when the content for things we love has to do with marketing, but I especially love when my team shares things like, I know, I know what they like to nerd out about, and I know some of their little quirky things, and it's a very fun, it's just kind of, it's evolved into this bigger thing, and I have no, nobody controls it. It's just when it's your turn, you do it however you want to do it.

Amanda Garcia [00:18:16]:
It's very fun. It should not be work, and it should not be pressure, and it should not be anything that anybody has to plan or labor over. It should really just be fun. So I would highly encourage it. Just because you get a lot of good tips, too.

Victoria Rayburn [00:18:31]:
Yeah. Especially skincare. I mean, I don't really know what I'm doing there, so.

Amanda Garcia [00:18:34]:
Yeah, me neither.

Victoria Rayburn [00:18:36]:
Now, definitely filing that. Oh, that's so good. Okay, so, Amanda, just like, as a quick recap, you're at least having a phone call with one of your team members every day. You guys have systems in place for communication on a day to day basis, and then you're meeting, technically, twice a week, once as your production slash check in meeting, and then once as your things you love meeting. And that's very much a team building focused. Is that.

Amanda Garcia [00:19:05]:
No, I'm sorry.

Victoria Rayburn [00:19:07]:
Everything.

Amanda Garcia [00:19:08]:
No. Things we love is still that first meeting. The first meeting is cherries and pits schedule client rundown things we love, which really only takes five minutes at the end of the meeting. So we start with, how's everyone doing? We end on a high note with things that we love. The second meeting is our leadership meeting. There's just three of us in that meeting, and that one has nothing to do with clients and actually nothing to do with team building. That one is all about building the business. Where are we with our vision? Where are we with our economic objectives? What are the things that we need to be focusing on to grow the business? So that is a different, as a smaller group with a different focus, and we actually don't spend any time in that call on team, team stuff.

Amanda Garcia [00:19:47]:
Unless something big is happening that we need to talk about. That first meeting is our one big team meeting. And then we used to do quarterly one on ones, and I realized during COVID that that wasn't enough, so we moved them to one monthly one on ones, just me with each person. So I end up having a one on one every week. And those are very focused on each employee's goals for their work. It actually doesn't have to do with client work. That is, how can I support you? I ask them, how can I support you in your work? Where are you feeling stuck? What would you like to accomplish this goal quarter? What are you going to work on this quarter that moves our company toward our economic objectives? How? Stuff with the team. How are you feeling? Are there anything, anything I need to know? Any way that I can help you? So that is just focused on that employee and their overall health in their work.

Amanda Garcia [00:20:43]:
Their overall work health. So those are monthly? Yeah. Daily call with the one weekly team call, weekly leadership call, monthly one on ones. And then every year, we get together in person, and that's very fun for a few days, that's our creative retreat. And every quarter, we have a call with our advisory board, and some of our staff is on that call. Some of them are not. But that. That's fun, too, because our advisory board is also remote in a few different states as well.

Amanda Garcia [00:21:21]:
So that's fun because we're pulling wisdom from outside of our team in a way that we wouldn't have done before COVID either, because everyone's very comfortable with Zoom now. Yeah. So that's the meetings.

Victoria Rayburn [00:21:37]:
And, I mean, I love that you have them all. It's very systematized, and I think that a lot of businesses that struggle with the remote work option is because they fail to put those systems in place. And as a result, everybody is flailing because there aren't good check in times. There aren't meetings that remind you of what the goals are. There aren't, you know, opportunities to get to know each other as people. So thank you so much for breaking all of that down for us, and thank you also for going beyond my question and not just telling what typical day looks like, because I guess I should have just asked, you know, what does business in general look like? So thank you so, so much, Amanda. I mean, I also want to ask, what are the advantages and disadvantages, advantages of having a remote team? We talked about some of the advantages, but that isn't. I don't want to make it sound like, oh, this is all just going to be rainbows and butterflies all the time.

Victoria Rayburn [00:22:23]:
And this is the way that people should go because there are certainly challenges. Why breaking that down for us?

Amanda Garcia [00:22:29]:
Yeah. And it's not for everybody. Like that employee who ended up leaving us because it really was not a good fit for her. It wasn't. It wasn't the healthy choice for her, and it's. It's not for everybody. So I made a list of disadvantages. I'll start with the pit and end with the cherry.

Amanda Garcia [00:22:44]:
I would say a disadvantage is there is not that natural, organic conversation that happens. Those water cooler moments that you miss, some relationship building that happens organically in an office. I think it takes longer. Another one is that it takes longer for a new person to become acclimated. It takes longer for them to get to know their co workers and to get immersed in company culture, because the company culture is spread out all over the place. And building a healthy company culture remotely is more difficult. I think communication is more work and connection is more work. And it's a bummer to not be able to celebrate things in person.

Amanda Garcia [00:23:29]:
One of our team members is going to have a baby in June, and I'm so bummed that we can't, like, have a little baby shower for her at work because we are not in the same place. So that's a bummer. And then when we do travel to get together, I would say a disadvantage is the cost of getting everybody on a plane and getting everybody to one location. And that's just an expensive way to see each other in person once a year. Totally worth it. But that's a quick list of disadvantages. But then the advantages. Should I talk about those two, or do you want to talk more about disadvantages?

Victoria Rayburn [00:24:05]:
Oh, yeah, we have to have a cherry after we had a pit.

Amanda Garcia [00:24:08]:
Yeah. Yeah. I always like to end with a cherry, too. The first thing is you mentioned it right at the top of the show, which is that you have a much lower overhead when you have a remote team because you're not paying for an office building or all of the utilities that go along with that. You're just give somebody a laptop, at least in our industry, you give them a laptop and they can run with it. I also think that huge advantage for our team is they all thrive in autonomy. That is one of our key characteristics. If you're familiar with any of Domino Miller's, growing your business things, having that mission statement, and having your knowing your team's key characteristics, and one of those is thriving in autonomy.

Amanda Garcia [00:24:52]:
And everyone on our team thrives in autonomy, so the remote work suits them. It also builds an incredibly high level of trust among team members because you're not seeing them every day, and you have to trust that the work is going to get done. Otherwise, you're stressed all the time and trying to micro manage people that you're not with. So when people rise to that occasion, you build this really, really high level of trust among the team. I love the flexibility, and that goes along with autonomy. I also love that we can have meetings immediately. We don't actually have to. If we need to hop on a huddle, we're just do that.

Amanda Garcia [00:25:35]:
We don't have to book a conference room and we don't have to out of schedule time, because our team works so intimately and that you can really work from anywhere. Our team member that was in Switzerland, Amy, she moved back, but she moved to Kentucky, so she moved time zones, but it didn't matter. Nothing about our work changed, except that she was available in the morning instead of in the afternoon. And a big one for me, too. A big advantage is that because those water cooler moments don't happen. To build a healthy team remotely, you have to be incredibly intentional about communication and about sharing. You have to be. But.

Amanda Garcia [00:26:20]:
And then that allows you to get to know your team members at a deeper level. I think so. Like, I might not know your favorite donut unless you share it and things we love, but I understand your working style, and I understand your approach to conflict, and I understand what you need to work well, and I understand what I can do to make you feel really appreciated and valued. And that's because. That's only because of really intentional question asking and deep listening, which you gotta do if you're building a remote team, a healthy remote team, because it doesn't work to just. It actually doesn't work to just give everyone a laptop and say, go, you have to give them a laptop, and then you have to be available. And setting an open door policy when you don't have a door is something you have to be overt about. Like, hey, guys, my door is always open.

Amanda Garcia [00:27:12]:
Call me anytime. If it's an emergency and you see that I'm doing deep work, you still know that you can call me if you need to. And you can't assume that people know that you've got. You got to tell them straight, straight up. So those are all advantages, too. And that, for me personally, have been huge advantages to a remote team. And the talent pool is huge. You can hire from anywhere, you can find the exact right person and it doesn't matter where they live.

Amanda Garcia [00:27:40]:
That's another one.

Natalie Franke [00:27:41]:
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Victoria Rayburn [00:28:26]:
As a small business owner, you probably have a seemingly endless to do list, but I can almost promise that there are things on your list that can be outsourced. Like grocery shopping. I mean, as a wedding photographer, the last thing I wanted to do after shooting a wedding on a Saturday was to spend my Sunday in a grocery store. So I am forever thankful that a friend told me about Instacart. Instacart is a grocery delivery service. Basically, you use the Instacart app to make your shopping list. Then a personal shopper goes to your preferred store, selects your groceries for you, and delivers them to you, typically all within just a few hours. You can also schedule your delivery time.

Victoria Rayburn [00:29:03]:
Personally, I will sing Instacart's praises forever because one, it has saved me countless hours. And two, Instacart employs local personal shoppers, meaning with every Instacart purchase, you are putting money directly back into your local economy. While Instacart does charge a delivery fee, when you upgrade to Instacart plus, for just $99 a year, you'll receive free, unlimited deliveries for all orders over $35. Considering the time and frustration you'll save, that's $99 well spent. If you'd like to avoid going to the grocery store and save $20 on your first order from Instacart of $35 or more, visit trefrogmarketing.com instacart. Again, if you'd like dollar 20 off your first Instacart order of $35 or more, visit treefrogmarketing.com instacart. Absolutely. And I mean, for us that has been huge.

Victoria Rayburn [00:29:52]:
You know, we have had leadership positions, decide to move or oh man, our project manager, Mary like we absolutely need her. And when, you know, her significant other got a job out of state, we're so thankful to be able to keep her. And then when our art director decided to help build church in another state, we were so excited that we were able to keep her, so. Oh, so thankful for Mary and Erin.

Amanda Garcia [00:30:14]:
Yeah.

Victoria Rayburn [00:30:14]:
Yes. Oh, man. Yes. Remote work. Very passionate about it. So we basically got to keep really great people.

Amanda Garcia [00:30:20]:
Yes. Yes. It's wonderful.

Victoria Rayburn [00:30:22]:
Okay, so, Amanda, you've already touched on this in several ways, but I'm just going to ask you this question only in that I know so many of our listeners, they want checklists. They want, like, hey, these are the instructions. This is what I need to do. So would you mind just giving us explain what are practical ways that small businesses can build and lead healthy, remote teams? I mean, I feel like you've already really done this with breaking down what your own systems look like. But if you just had to give people a few tips and tricks, what would you tell them?

Amanda Garcia [00:30:50]:
Well, do you. Let me ask you this. Do you feel like your listeners, are most of them solopreneurs, or do they have small teams? Do you have a sense of, like, how they're growing? Tell me a little bit more about your listeners.

Victoria Rayburn [00:31:02]:
Oh, yes. I would love to. Always happy to talk about our listeners. So we definitely have a spectrum. We do have some solopreneurs, but a lot of those solopreneurs have contractors that they work with. So they might have a virtual assistant or, I mean, depending on what they do, you know, like, let's say they're a photographer, then maybe they have an editor. So they have a small team of part time team members, more or less. But then a lot of our listeners also have small teams.

Victoria Rayburn [00:31:26]:
So, yes, very, very much a spectrum.

Amanda Garcia [00:31:28]:
Okay.

Victoria Rayburn [00:31:29]:
Does that answer your question?

Amanda Garcia [00:31:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. That's great, because I think if you're trying to grow with contractors. Well, I'll stop. Okay, rewind. You said checklist. We want practical things, like, how do I build my team and have where they work not matter, practically speaking, if you're hiring an employee, so not a contractor, but somebody who's actually going to be on payroll.

Amanda Garcia [00:31:52]:
I think it's so important to be very, very clear on exactly what needs to happen so you can find the exact right person to make that happen. So if you're drowning because you need help, it will be very difficult to find the right person if you don't have a really clear job description about what you need that person to do. So that's very basic. Start with step one, get a clear job description. And I would also, because remote culture is hard to build, I would spend some time thinking about what kind of company culture you want to build and include that in the job description. So if you know your core values, if you know the key characteristics, if you know what your team, what the team member will need to have, or the type of person they need to be to thrive in that position, put it in the job description and I would say be as specific as possible and don't be shy about it. Like it would not work. And the last time we hired, we put this in a job description, we put it out on LinkedIn, that you have to thrive in autonomy, that you will not succeed at ColorWord Creative unless you like to, unless you are good at time management and can get your stuff done on time, and you don't need somebody to hold your hand if you're allergic to micromanagement, you're going to be happy here as long as you also have a strong work ethic.

Amanda Garcia [00:33:17]:
So I would say get clear on what needs to happen, but get clear on the type of person that you need, and don't be afraid to be specific and practical in that, and then get it out there. And there's a whole different podcast to talk about hiring and a hiring process, which is different if you're hiring remote. We have a system where I usually do the first screening call, and then we have a team call, and then I have, there's a third interview. Sometimes we break it down into four. That's a different podcast for a different time. But then in the hiring process, we've learned. And again, this is a constant learning process. We're constantly getting better at this, and there's more that we need to do.

Amanda Garcia [00:34:05]:
But in onboarding a new person, it's so important to over communicate because they don't know anything. And that poor person is sitting there with a laptop like, well, what do I do now and who do I talk to and who do I ask about this? So, giving them being really having a great onboarding checklist, if you like checklists, is helpful and it needs to include things like when you, when we have team calls, everybody has their camera on. Some teams we do that at color word. A lot of people, it doesn't matter. People call on voice calls, but when we do our team building calls, everybody's on camera. So I don't care what you look like, but please have your camera on for those team calls. And along with that, if we're having a call with a client. It actually does matter.

Amanda Garcia [00:34:51]:
Please don't wear, you know, pajama pants to a client call. I don't care if I can't see you from pajama pants are fine, you know, but remember, we're meeting with a client, so just as you would meet. So things like that that maybe seem obvious but are not obvious because the workforce has changed so much. The way that we do work is so different than it used to be. So expectations need to be very clear and sometimes painfully so. Like you think that may just, I guess, would never assume. It's so important to never assume that something is obvious when it comes to remote work and remote communication. So having a clear onboarding checklist that I find we update every time we onboard someone because we find where the holes are in it.

Amanda Garcia [00:35:34]:
So that's constantly changing. And then tools are important. Like I mentioned, slack and, and doing an orientation for each tool, which we share. We do a lot of screen sharing because we don't assume that you've used Slack, and if you do, maybe you don't use it the way we do. There's several trainings that we need to do with Asana because as I mentioned, it's a big tool. So slack, toggle. Toggle is what we use for time tracking that's free up to a certain amount of members. It's a handy tool.

Amanda Garcia [00:36:06]:
All of these are free up to a certain point, so that's great for time tracking. And I don't use toggle to track people's time all the time, but I ask them to track what they're doing. So that helps with invoicing for me, the way that we do invoicing projects, and it helps me to understand over a lot. It's a data point. I'm collecting data points. Okay. How long does it take to do this type of a project? How many hours, on average, does it take us as a team to build a website? So tracking time, I try to stress that it's not that I am trying to manage your time, it's I'm just trying to understand the time that it takes to do things. So toggle is another one that we use and have and do an orientation.

Amanda Garcia [00:36:50]:
Yeah. And then I think that I've gotten off track from the actual question.

Victoria Rayburn [00:36:54]:
No, you're just segueing nicely into the next question.

Amanda Garcia [00:36:57]:
Do you add, what do you have? Do you have a checklist that you use for onboarding or for hiring remote teams at Treefrog?

Victoria Rayburn [00:37:06]:
Oh, very much so. I'm like, as you explain all of this I'm just thinking, like, you and Mary would absolutely be best friends. Mary is our production manager and she handles all checklists and all of these kinds of things. So. Uh, yes, absolutely. But I mean, I love actually that you started talking about tools because that was the next question that I was going to ask you. Are you already, like, covered several, but are there any other tools that your team uses to enable remote work other.

Amanda Garcia [00:37:34]:
Than the ones that I mentioned? We use loom a lot. I find that it's just easier if you're going to try and explain something. I would rather record a ten second video and share my screen and talk through what I'm trying to say and send it instead of type about it back and forth. We use loom a lot and we use. Sometimes it's fun to, to be able to use things like Google Meet for meetings, but also for the document sharing and if we're working, if there's several of us working in something at the same time, or if we're leaving comments for each other, that Google Meet, Google Docs, sorry, Google sheets and the Google Slides. And then do you ever use Figma for sketching out things like whiteboard whiteboarding? So you can pull it up and everybody's on at the same time and it's also a shared screen, but you can, everybody can doodle on it at the same time. So that's fun for brainstorming sessions.

Victoria Rayburn [00:38:30]:
Yeah, absolutely. I can't say we use that one ClickUp. We use ClickUp instead of Asana. And there are definitely some features like that in there. To be honest, I can't draw all that well, so I'm not about to draw anything for anybody to see. But, yes, totally fair.

Amanda Garcia [00:38:43]:
Yeah. Yeah, those are the main ones. I would say the calendar is important. We just use a Google calendar, but it's important when people are putting stuff in, when they're, they're out for a doctor's appointment or, you know, we. I rely on the calendar a lot to see where people are, so that if I. But it just helps, again, with communication. You know, they're going out, they're having lunch with a friend or something, and I help with. Yeah, yeah.

Amanda Garcia [00:39:09]:
So calendar is a good one, too. A very simple tool, but one that is important.

Victoria Rayburn [00:39:13]:
And you know what, the simple tools are usually the best ones. So I think that is great. And again, you guys have so many systems that these tools, you know, just aid in the systems. They're just part of it. But I mean, we will definitely be sure to link to all the tools that you mentioned in the show notes and then also in this episode's coinciding blog so that way y'all can find it. If you anybody listening wants the list of Amanda's tools, please be sure to either check out the show notes or go to Priority Pursuit.com. If you click on the blog post for this episode, we will make sure that it is all linked there. Now, Amina, I know that a lot of small business owners, they just have concerns about building remote teams and like more or less because they're afraid that their staff won't be productive.

Victoria Rayburn [00:39:57]:
You've already spoken to this quite a bit, but would you mind just speaking to those concerns and giving some practical ways to encourage and track productivity?

Amanda Garcia [00:40:07]:
Yeah, this is a good question and one that I have been thinking about quite a bit, and it's tough, but the answer is actually not about productivity and more, I think. I hope that this is not annoying, but I think that the answer is leadership, not management. Because if you are clear on your company culture and you are clear on your expectations and you get the right people on your bus, you don't have to worry about their productivity because they're doing work that they love most of the time and they're the right people and they have bought into your vision and they want to do their job. And if you hire people who want to do your job, do their job, then you don't have to worry about productivity. And who honestly has time to worry about somebody else's productivity? I don't. I don't have time to manage anybody else's work. I have my own pile of work I need to do and I've got a company I'm trying to build. So I need my people to own their jobs and my job is to set the expectation and make sure that they have everything they need to do their job.

Amanda Garcia [00:41:25]:
Which is why those check ins are important. Those one on one times. Where are you getting stuck? What can I do for you to give you what you need to go and do your job? Because those people are going to make the job more than you ever thought that it could be. If it's the right, if it's the right person. Dan Sullivan's book, who not how, is an inspiring resource. I think, and I totally agree, like you have so much more time and capacity if you have the right whos in place to do the whats or the hows. So if you dont have to worry about the hows because theyre going to figure out how you cast the vision. You get the right person on the bus and they do it.

Amanda Garcia [00:42:07]:
So I know thats not an answer that you want. And if its a productivity thing, time tracking software like toggl works really well. If you, if you can categorize, type in exactly what you're working on and which client it's for and whether it's billable hours or not and what project for, it's very what project for what client? And they, that's very easy to run reports on that. So you can run reports based on time or employee or client or project. So you can track, like I said, what takes, how much time certain things take. So that's one way to make sure that, to track productivity. But I think if you set an expectation and say you have two weeks to accomplish this thing and it doesn't get done, that's a red flag. Everyone's allowed to make mistakes, of course.

Amanda Garcia [00:43:04]:
And there's, especially if somebody's new or if there are extenuating circumstances. I recently moved and things were a little bit crazy there for a while because of moving my family and moving my office. And, you know, things happen and that's okay. But if it becomes a regular pattern where you set the expectation, they have everything they need and it's not getting done, then to me that sounds like that person is just probably not going to be a good fit on the team. So that is really my answer to that question, is it has to be about the whole, not the how, and it has to be about buying into the vision and setting the expectations. So much of the reason that the people who work on my team are here because, like I said, they thrive in autonomy and they love our company culture and they believe in the work that we're doing, that it has value, that they have a purpose in their work. And I am very fortunate, but I have just, I don't have any issue with productivity at all because we set the, here's the deadline, here's what needs to happen. And also, it has not always been that way.

Amanda Garcia [00:44:24]:
And I have made mistakes and I have had the wrong person on the bus, the wrong people on the bus, and I think the person changes as the bus goes along. We're driving down the road and sometimes people have to get off to get other people on, and that's okay, too. And I think being very aware of where you are in this journey, the more self aware you can become as a company, the more you can identify who needs to be on or off the bus. So that's a mistake I've made too hanging on too long or trying to make something work for too long when it really had reached its end point and it's okay to let go and move on and make room for the next person to jump on who's going to be enthusiastic and love the work. I love that. I know. I'm sure everybody's heard this, that the thing that you hate to do, somebody else loves to do. So you should stop doing it and find somebody else who loves to do that.

Amanda Garcia [00:45:15]:
There's so much freedom in that. Also, I should say this is important that we do work a four day workweek, and that is also a game changer, because if everybody knows they've got to get everything done by Thursday evening, it's just amazing what they can get done in four days. We work for eight hour days. Although, you know, people work when they want to work, but I don't care. I guess that's the thing. I don't care when they work as long as the work gets done, when it needs to be done and it falls on me. If they don't have the information, then I own that. Like, if there's.

Amanda Garcia [00:45:51]:
If I've caused some kind of bottleneck or if they have asked for something that hasn't been sent to them, I own that. That is not their fault. That is just completely on me, and that happens, too. But if, as long as I'm doing my job and keeping everything unstuck, the work gets done when it's supposed to. And I really think it's because they care about the team. They don't want to let anybody on the team down. They like our clients. They want to do good work.

Amanda Garcia [00:46:16]:
They believe in the vision and where we're going. They understand the vision and where we're going. They have clear expectations. And, man, I just. I do my best. I really do. I do my best every day to make sure that's my whole job is to make sure that they know where we're going and have everything that they need to do their part to get there, which is a very long winded answer to a question about productivity. And I hope that's helpful and not annoying, but that is where I've landed on that.

Amanda Garcia [00:46:49]:
On that question.

Victoria Rayburn [00:46:50]:
Not at all. I mean, I so appreciate the wisdom in that answer because, and I'm just really glad that that was your response, because I think a lot of people do get caught up in the micromanaging, especially when you go from being a solopreneur to having a team, because you're so used to having done everything yourself for so long, and a lot of people think, like, oh, it needs to be done the way that I did it. But if you hire well, and, Amanda, we're just gonna have to have a whole other episode at some point or have you back on to talk about how hire well, because clearly, this is a gift that you have. You know, all these things just fall into place when expectations are clear and the mission is clear and everybody knows where they're going. So now, that was a perfect, perfect answer. And then, Amanda, one final question before we wrap up. If someone is listening and they have concerns about transitioning to or building a remote team, what would you tell them?

Amanda Garcia [00:47:44]:
Okay, I made a list because this was a good question, too, and I thought about all the ways that we messed up when we went fully remote. And so this. Forgive me if this is repetitive from things I've already said, but if. If your listeners are thinking about transitioning or building remote team, I cannot stress enough that it will take time, and it will be a. It will be a transition, and transition always takes longer than I think it should, because I can be impatient, and it's, um. There's always pain points, always. Like, it will not be, um. It will not be perfect right away.

Amanda Garcia [00:48:25]:
It will take time. So patience is really important. Grace is really important with yourself and with your team. Um, and self awareness is really important. Being able to look and see, okay, something didn't work here. What was it? And how can we learn from it and. And not have it happen again? Um, also, intentionality. I know I've said this, but, like, the over communication and the intentionality in communication is crucial.

Amanda Garcia [00:48:52]:
There's just, you can't assume anything and take anything for granted. And so setting up, I just think it's so important to over communicate at the beginning, especially with this new staff member that we have, and I call her every day. I don't think I'm going to call her every day forever. I think this is our season, a season of daily calls right now, and that will probably wean down to a couple times a week, and maybe it'll only be once a week, and then maybe, you know, she'll be running her own team, and our monthly check ins will be enough. So that's another thing to remember, is that it doesn't, the way that it is right now doesn't have to be the way it is forever, by the way, those calls, I have to say, I thought when we started doing that, that it would be all for her. Like, I'm here to help her do her job and answer her questions, but they have become so, so helpful for me because she helps me when I'm on the phone and I'm in the car and she's talking me through what she's doing and then asking me how she's keeping me on track of all of the things, too. She's helping me to keep track of certain things for our retainer clients. And then I can have an idea and ask her to take care of it right there on the phone.

Amanda Garcia [00:50:08]:
So then she's getting this stuff done while I'm just driving. And it's wonderful. It's, like, added to my productivity. It's fantastic. So the, but that's aside, that's a tangent to the way things are right now are not the way that they're going to be forever. And we give it a chance, like, give it a real chance before you give up on it. I would say that, too. Like I said, I'm impatient and I want to move to the next thing all the time.

Amanda Garcia [00:50:36]:
And Amy, my communications director, is famous for reminding me that, like, sometimes things take longer than a week, sometimes things take longer than a quarter. And we need to really give this a chance and say, we've invested this much. Let's make sure this really, let's set up a metric and let's give ourselves a deadline. And if we're giving it everything we got until that deadline and it still doesn't work, okay, then maybe this isn't for us, but give it a real chance before you give up on it. Because nothing, that nothing ever, it won't happen quickly or be perfect. And the last thing I would say is, because I always got to end on a cherry, is to focus on gratitude and to focus on your wins in the process. So rather than looking back on the day and saying, oh, that ball got dropped, or I totally forgot to check that off, and so that thing happened and it became a mess. Instead of that, focus on the win that is, hey, I made that higher.

Amanda Garcia [00:51:42]:
And this person has come this far to track your progress is, it's such a better way to look at it and to remember how far you've come. And I try to make it a habit every night before I go to bed to write down at least one, ideally three wins for that day, because whenever I look back in my notebook, then I can see all the wins that have happened every day. And then I remember how far we've come, and that always puts things in.

Victoria Rayburn [00:52:17]:
Perspective.

Amanda Garcia [00:52:20]:
And gratitude to be able to work from anywhere. And to be able to hire from anywhere, to be able to do work that you love with people that you love, like that's living the dream. So of course, I encourage your listeners, if this is what they want to do, to stay focused on those things, even though I know it's very easy to get caught up in the things that are not working because transition is hard. So yes, it takes time. Transition is hard. Be patient, be intentional, over communicate, and frame your life as a series of wins whenever you can.

Victoria Rayburn [00:52:55]:
Amanda, this episode has just been full of so many great tactics and strategies, but mostly just wisdom. Thank you so, so much for coming on the show. Again, I have no doubt that those listening are going to want to hear even more from you. So where can people find you, connect with you, and learn more about the many, many things that you offer both, you know, your clients and your students?

Amanda Garcia [00:53:17]:
Oh, thank you. Our website is color wordcreative.com. A lot of times people call it color world. It's not color world. It was a mistake. I didn't know. But it's ColorWord Creative because we do both visual. We start with the messaging, the words.

Amanda Garcia [00:53:35]:
The words are the most important, and then we follow that with visual design. So ColorWord Creative. And that's our handle on all the socials, too. On LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook, it's ColorWord Creative. And I'm Amanda Garcia. And of course, they're welcome to follow me and link me questions. Hit me up. I'm around.

Amanda Garcia [00:53:52]:
I love to talk shop.

Victoria Rayburn [00:53:54]:
Oh, amazing. Again, we will be sure to include all of those links in the show notes. Y'all. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of the Priority Pursuit podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, we hope you'll take a moment to share it with your small business friends. I mean, it's a good one, guys. You should share this one. And also to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Victoria Rayburn [00:54:14]:
And we hope that you'll join us next week for even more marketing boundary and priority driven tactics you can use to build a life and small business that you love.