#208: Organizing Your Dream Team SOPs and Workflow Management

Episode: 208

Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Vinay Patankar – Co-founder and CEO at Process Street

Subtitle: “Organizing Your Dream Team: SOPs and Workflow Management”

Final Show Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGA0cmhaCCw&list=PLVIz0IewRSqDUVXG_IAXsVx9ZWE8_Vanz&index=6&t=10s

Back on Lunch with Norm…Vinay Patankar the Co-Founder and CEO at Process Street joins today’s show to talk about the importance of workflow software, modern process management, and the difficulties of remote work. Vinay is an Australian entrepreneur that co-founded Process Street, designed to help businesses streamline their operations Process Street works as a toll to manage and automate work for teams like Salesforce, AirBnB, Yale, GAP and hundreds more.

If you are a new listener to Lunch With Norm… we would love to hear from you. Please visit our Facebook Page and join in on episode discussion or simply let us know what you think of the episode!

In this episode, we discuss:

•  0:00 Intro/Housekeeping
• 5:48 Welcome Vinay Patankar
• 11:30 Getting Started Writing an SOP
• 18:14 SOP’s are Critical for eCommerce Business
• 23:35 Areas to Focus on to Succeed at eCommerce Business
• 29:30 Keys to Building an Ecommerce Business
• 33:15 Fundamental Steps to Creating Powerful SOP’s
• 46:15 Process Street and Workflow Management
• 52:32 SOP’s and Workflow Management

Follow our Podcast

• Lunch With Norm…Website
• Lunch With Norm…Facebook Group
• Lunch With Norm…Youtube
• Lunch With Norm…Instagram
• Lunch With Norm…Twitter
• Lunch With Norm…Apple Podcast

Follow our Host

• https://normanfarrar.com/
• https://www.facebook.com/lunchwithnorm
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/normanfarrar?originalSubdomain=ca
• https://twitter.com/normfarrarjr?lang=en
• https://www.tiktok.com/@normanfarrar/ 
• https://www.pinterest.ca/officialnormanfarrar/ 

Join the Conversation

Our favorite part of recording a live podcast each week is participating in the great conversations that happen on our live chat, on social media, and in our comments section.  

Explore these Resources

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

• Emyth
• https://fourhourworkweek.com/
• https://zapier.com/

Join our PLN

Join our discussion network here!:

• Lunch With Norm…Facebook

Check Out More Lunch With Norm…. Programming

• lunchwithnorm.com/ 

Need a Presenter?

• normanfarrar.com

Norman Ferrar  0:01  

Hey everyone it’s Norman Farrar aka the beard guy here and welcome to another lunch with Norm the Amazon FBA and Ecommerce podcast.

Norman Ferrar  0:20  

Okay, so I think I mentioned this on our last podcast is going to be a fun show for me everybody knows how animal I am when it comes to SOPs and automation. So we are going to be talking about how to organize your ECOM team and create modern process management, otherwise known as SOP. So our guest is a co-founder and CEO of process street or process dot S T. And he’s designed and helped tons of businesses automate and streamline their operations. He’s also been helpful with Salesforce or AB Yale. A couple of you know those small companies and 1000s of others just like you so today our guest is Vinay and I hope I’m saying this Vinnie. Patane car, okay, we never had a chance to discuss it before we got on the podcast. But anyways, if I pronounced it wrong, I apologize in advance. But before we do this, I just wanted to give a big shout out to our sponsors. solarize, solarize is your conference comprehensive solution for your everyday business needs? It’s everything you need to grow and scale your Amazon business or any competence but Amazon business specifically in just one click for more information, please contact demon his team over at cellar eyes calm. And as I’ve mentioned before, solarize is just spelt with one R but not two. Okay, where’s the Boy Wonder?

Kelsey  1:52  

Hello, hello, happy Monday.

Norman Ferrar  1:54  

Hey, this is our 260 late podcast.

Kelsey   1:59  

I know that we’re on record here

Norman Ferrar   2:01  

We are, you know, one day we’re going to go at noon. You know, I don’t know when that’s gonna be but one of these days it will happen. Maybe that’s you know, that’s our MO You know,

Kelsey  2:11  

I think that’s I think that’s a goal for 2022

Norman Ferrar   2:13  

but to be on time. Is that something I can blame on you?

Kelsey   2:18  

I mean, you can try, I’m sure Yeah, might as well. But anyways, welcome everyone to the show. Welcome Jessica Rabbit and the Manny rads Sarfraz Simon we got another Facebook user it’s great to see everyone give us those thumbs up to get the show rolling smash those like buttons and share the episode to all your Amazon and E commerce buddies out there. Yeah, before it’s all gonna be early one of these days Yeah, well, we’ll change things up cheeky I’m

Norman Ferrar   2:53  

and as he’s known in UK.

Kelsey  2:57  

But anyways, if you’re new to the show, we go live every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 12pm. Eastern time. You can join our Facebook group linfoot Norm, Amazon ecommerce, or Amazon FBA e commerce collective. That’s the best way to be a part of the beard nation. And yeah, joining the community and sharing and some awesome memes, ask questions. Look for advice all can happen in the group. So anyways, oh, you’re going to event soon, right? Is that?

Norman Ferrar   3:28  

Yeah. And actually, I thought you’re gonna forget about this. So I had it here on my desktop on a sticky remind Kelsey. But anyways, if you are planning on going down to the Amazon Powell in Miami, I think that’s on the second. Let us know we have a ticket. It’s a free ticket. So if you are going down to Miami, let me know Tim’s gonna be there as well. There’s gonna be a bunch of really great Amazon speakers. I think Brian Johnson is going to be there. There’s a bunch. Anyways, we have a free ticket that we like to give away. But just let us know. You could either put it in the group that you’re going to be there or message us in the group and that’ll be great. Also, today. I’m going to be in an A, the events already started. We’re just late. But we have an incredible event that’s going on held by Josh Marsden. So Josh has been on here a few times. He is a phenomenal nine figure seller, as you guys know. And he has an event called EECOM growth holiday. He calm growth hackers and been on his summit before. It’s incredible. He’s got a lineup of people that you probably you’ve heard of some you haven’t heard of others, and that’s what I like about his Summit is he mixes it up, but they’re all very good at what they do. In fact, Bradley Long’s on there. So he’s going to be talking about tick tock but he is that sharp Fight guru that he’s been on. He’s been also at our live event in Costa Rica. He’s an awesome guy. So we have that information. You’ll post the link a bit later on. And it’s free. So don’t have to worry about anything. It’s free, you’ll just get a ton of knowledge out of it. So I think this is the longest intro we’ve ever done.

Kelsey   5:25  

I think so. So let’s, let’s jump right into it and get it started.

Norman Ferrar   5:30  

Okay, so there we go. We haven’t even got to the will of Kelsey.

Kelsey   5:34  

We’ll discuss that during the show. All right, thank

Norman Ferrar  5:37  

you kills. Alright, so let’s get to it. If you have any questions or comments, throw it over the right hand column. And sit back relax, and it will enjoy the show. Welcome, Vinay. Oh, you’re on mute. Here’s a rookie rookie

Vinay Patankar  5:57  

mistake. There we go. How’s

Norman Ferra   5:58  

it going? What’s up? No, I’m great to see you. Thanks for having me on. Oh, I see you wearing a shirt. Process street. What is that? God I go. Okay. Let me know. Am I pronouncing your name properly?

Vinay Patankar  6:15  

Yeah, you did? Well, Vinay. That’s pretty straightforward. Patonga is how I pronounce it. But I don’t even think that’s like the actual traditional way of pronouncing it. So

Norman Ferrar  6:23  

alright, so we’ll just stick at that. So. Okay, I got a thumbs up on that. So that’s good. Look, I reached out to you, because I saw an event that you were at. I’ve used your product before. I loved your product before. I’ve talked about your app. But I saw that you were talking, I thought, well, this would be great. I’m an SOP guy. I graduated through the E Myth Academy. And I always talking about systems and automation and how we even have a system, a standard operating procedure five page system, an operating procedure about how to make a cup of coffee in the office?

Vinay Patankar  7:01  

No, I actually did a, I did a podcast episode a couple of years ago with Michael Gerber. That’s on our blog somewhere if you want to search for that, but that was a cool episode. Yeah. Big Emeth fans.

Norman Ferrar   7:13  

Yeah, I like I was back back in 95, I think way, way back. But yeah, nothing digital, they used to send out their course modules. It’s all paper. And you know, I still got them, you know, you have to go through write it all out. But anyways, I think this is important, and anybody that’s listening, you know, we talk about this a ton about getting your VAs taking tasks that are repeated, and get them to hop on and start creating. I call them policies and procedures, but standard operating procedures SOPs, and we’re going to go through that today. So if you know of anybody, any friends, any family that’s involved with EECOM business in general, Amazon, get them to tune in. This is gonna be an important podcast. I don’t say that, usually. But I think it’s gonna be really important, and I can’t wait to talk. So let’s talk a bit about you. Yeah, who are you? What do you do?

Vinay Patankar    8:12  

Well, actually, it’s funny because I can kind of tell you the full story, or I can tell you a little bit of a condensed one. But the funny thing is that, like, the very first business that I started was an ecommerce business. So I’m from Australia, originally. Live in the live in the US now San Diego, San Francisco, between there. And, you know, I kind of had a pretty traditional, like, kind of childhood, you know, normal school, parents very into education, and very traditional kind of, you know, upbringing, my dad’s Indian and very kind of like traditional that way saying, Go to get a education and go work for a big company and get stability and whatnot. So it was kind of Up until then, and I was falling following a pretty normal track. And then when I was like, 23, I, well, a couple things happen. So firstly, I decided like I was going to go traveling and backpacking. That was like the first decision that happened. And I did that because I got a little taste of it, you know, you maybe you’ve met Australians backpacking around, it’s a pretty common thing to do. Lots of my friends have done it. And so I’ve made that decision, I’d saved up some good money, I was working in a good, you know, corporate job and making some good money at it at a university. And I decided, okay, look, I’m just gonna go travel for basically until my money runs out maybe six months, maybe 12 months, and see how that goes. I’m going to do it now. Because I know I’m, you know, at the age where I can’t really replicate this experience when I’m older. And I think that was actually very important. First of all, like insight that I that I figured out somehow I don’t know where I picked that up, but I was like, yeah, it’s not going to be the same if I want to go traveling when I’m retired or whatever. So I’m going to do it now. And then while I was like gearing up to do that trip, I started like packing on my apartment and getting rid of all my stuff and you know, quitting my job. I read The Four Hour Workweek. And that was 2009. And so I through that book, he’s like, Oh yeah, you can run an e commerce Store and travel and make similar six figure salary that you’re making in the corporate world. And like, well, I’m taking this time off already. Why don’t I give that a shot? And I literally just copied the playbook in the book. That was the first thing I did. I found a non perishable easy to ship product that wasn’t well distributed in Australia. I convinced this company in the UK to give me distribution rights. It was actually a women’s nail product that was like the first I think the website still up it’s called metallic nails. I don’t know if it is metallic nails come today. And build that on Shopify was like v one Shopify 2009, like back in the day. And yeah, that was like kind of how I got my start really in business. That was my first kind of like internet company that told me a lot of internet marketing chops, I flipped it in a couple of years, and kind of went on to start multiple other, you know, internet companies after that, that was really my, my entrance into everything. So I have a lot of empathy for people in, in E commerce starting Shopify stores and Amazon businesses. And obviously, we have a lot of customers that are in that space as well. Right?

Norman Ferrar  11:17  

So when did the whole SOP or systems kind of hit you? When did you? Okay, I gotta, I gotta get this in place. Did you get into a hyper growth company? Or what ended up happening?

Vinay Patankar   11:32  

Yeah, yeah, well, so I started learning about ERP systems and stuff from Tim Ferriss. That was like the beginning, because, you know, he kind of talks about a little bit about that in the book. And one of the things that I had like, optimized for was I wanted to be like location dependent, right, I wanted to be able to continue to travel and have flexibility. And so that started to niche down what I wanted to do, and also create kind of frameworks for what I wanted to do. So I had to have a more digital kind of product or with good fulfillment or something, I didn’t want to be in a physical business, you know, that, that tied me to a location, and being able to kind of run the business, keep it stable while you’re traveling around. And also just just scale it in an efficient, efficient way. I started you know, hiring VAs and using up work and different products like that. And then that kind of got me starting to build some processes and figure out how to train the BAS and offload and delegate some tasks. So that was like the early days, me learning about, you know, systems and processes, also had like experience of it. In kind of the corporate world, I actually used to be a recruiter in Sydney, so recruit engineers for the investment banks in Sydney. So Deutsche Bank, UBS, JP Morgan, things like that. And they have crazy amounts of systems, both like written procedures, as well as technology deployed to build crazy workflows, and processes and systems. And they’re constantly building and I was like hiring for a lot of the technical roles in that space, to help them build these processes and systems. So I got kind of exposure to it. In the early days, when I really started feeling the personal pain, though, was, when I was running, I was running a marketing company, we were doing lead gen for consumer finance. So the business was basically running a whole portfolio of websites, doing credit card comparisons insurance, like lead gen, mortgage lead, Gen, you know, running a kind of kind of like nerd wallet, but spread across like many, many websites, instead of just like a single kind of site. And that was starting to scale. We’re running all these properties. We had lots of like advertising campaigns, running, launching 2030 different experiments a day, and I was handling a lot of that work, I was trying to outsource it to VAs and trying to build a team. And I, you know, that is when it started to break. I was like, Okay, how do I kind of go from 10 to 20? People? How do I make all these people kind of work properly and deliver the work that I want, without me needing to kind of micromanage and track and audit and fix and change, tweak and continue to do that every day whenever like this work being pushed out. And so it was, and then that ended up like leading to me being up late at night dealing with my virtual system teams in the Philippines, trying to make sure that they were doing everything right, because I’d wake up in the morning, a bunch of stuff broken, that all gone to bed by then I’m like, Oh no, what am I going to do? So I started staying up late at night, trying to make sure that they were like delivering work in the way that they wanted. And it kind of came down to like, Okay, we need better processes for this, you know, so that started to try to build processes using Docs and Google Sheets and asana and like all that stuff kept breaking. And that was when I started looking for a workflow product that allowed me to actually kind of build workflows that would keep people on the rails, not give them flexibility to be able to go in and change the structure or process that I designed. And that was kind of the original kernel for process Street.

Norman Ferrar   14:51  

Very good. So Kelsey, I think we’re probably going to get a lot of questions about this today. So can you just kind of Keep an eye out for how many questions we have, and that we have enough time to answer them. I, I think we’ll get a lot of questions. So add leading on that point. If you do have questions or comments, let us know. I know that a ton of people ask us about how to operate, how to create operating systems what to do. And we’re going to be covering a lot of this today. But it’s so important if you really want to scale your business. If you want to create a turnkey operation for these aggregators, or for these people that are buying up Amazon businesses left, right and center, you want to make it simple for them. And this is just one things that makes you look so much better than the next guy who provides receipts in a shoe box, you know, who are they going to take somebody that has SOPs and is organized, or somebody that has receipts in a shoe box? If it’s apples to apples? So anyway, we’re going to get into this right now. I just think that I really want to see a bunch of questions in here, because I know there’s so many Amazon sellers that are not doing this. So yeah, go ahead.

Kelsey  16:09  

And I just want to jump in. And maybe you don’t even have a question per se, but just share with us maybe a struggle that you’re having with Oh, god,

Norman Ferrar  16:17  

yeah, there’s some issues that you’re doing with some problems that you have with SOPs right now.

Kelsey  16:22  

Yeah, so put them over in the comment section. Also, just to remind you, Norm, the giveaway today, we can jump into that as well.

Norman Ferrar  16:30  

Kelsey, you know, me? Okay, what’s our giveaway today? Yeah, sometimes they just do that to Kelsey, you know, not that I’m doing that to you. But, you know, Kelsey, just gets on my nerves sometimes wipe you off the screen? No, I never never, he never gets on my nerves. But anyways, why don’t we talk about the the quick giveaway? And then, and it’s awesome. So if we want to do that, and then we’ll tell you how to how to claim it. Yeah, awesome.

Vinay Patankar    16:59  

So we can talk about what process treat is maybe a

Norman Ferrar   17:03  

little bit later. Yeah, that’s gonna be towards the end, we’ll we’ll nail that what they’re getting.

Vinay Patankar    17:06  

But um, yeah, I know that you give away something to to your audience on every show. So we want to kind of come with something that we thought would be exciting. So as part of, you know, kind of on the show, we’re giving away a free process slash workflow consultation, we have a workflow consulting team, here at prostreet. That helps our customers design and build out workflows and automations for their business. So you can get you’ll get a free one hour consultation with them, as well as an extended trial on our platform, process Street. Normally, it’s a 14 day trial. So we’ll give you 60 days, so you can play with the product, speak to one of our consultants and see if it’s a good fit.

Norman Ferrar   17:43  

That’s fantastic. So not only you’re going to hear about this today, but if you’re interested in that free consult with the extended 60 day. Hashtag we’ll have Kelsey, if you want a second entry, just tag us tag us with two people. Okay, so let’s get into this. The processes or SOPs? Where does Where do you even start? When do you start to put together an SOP?

Vinay Patankar   18:13  

Well, um, generally, it’s when you’re starting to grow, they give you a very short answer. So the nature of processes and SOPs, there are a few more examples. But the nature of processes and SOPs like as a concept, let’s forget about technology or whatever, you know, you started learning about this stuff, when everything was not very digital, even.

Norman Ferrar  18:35  

Okay, I don’t have to say it, but I’m an

Vinay Patankar    18:36  

old, you mentioned. But, uh, like, the nature, the nature of processes, and what they do is generally you’re like taking some type of institutional knowledge, you’re taking some knowledge that exists inside the business that you’ve decided is like valuable knowledge, because you’ve, you’ve maybe figured out the right way to do something, you know, something works, you know, something, it needs to be compliant, or whatever, there’s some type of institutional knowledge has been created in the business, usually by somebody, normally somebody more senior, but not always. You’re trying to encode that institutional knowledge, you know, write it down, put it into technology somewhere, so that other people can then like, execute off that institutional knowledge without them needing to come to you ask you questions, and also hopefully helping train them and minimize the mistakes they make and make the kind of entire business run smoother. So the idea of a process is generally like, someone has institutional knowledge and they try to like, hand off or scale that institutional knowledge out to other people. There isn’t so much value in in writing down a process. If you’re just a one person business, we don’t really have anybody else to consume that process and hand it off to now that is, that is not the rule. There are exceptions to that rule. You know, you might you might be a one person business, but you might have a very complicated process or task that you have to do and maybe you do Just want to make sure that you do it correctly yourself. So you want to document it to make sure that you don’t make mistakes when you do it. You know, maybe it’s costly, maybe there’s legal risks. The other thing, as you mentioned, as well is that if you’re trying to sell your business at some point in the future, and you’re a one person business, it is not, it’s very difficult to sell something if all the institutional knowledge is in your head. And you will give that to somebody else that have no idea how anything worked, or how they were supposed to actually operate the business. So there are some scenarios where even if you are a one person business, you may want to document it. But you generally find processes add more value as the team grows, because there’s more people to learn from that knowledge, adopt it, and then execute it.

Norman Ferrar   20:40  

You know, you touched on something I wasn’t even thinking of, but it’s absolutely essential. How many times have you spent five minutes 10 minutes a half hour trying to figure out a process that you did before. I mean, for Amazon people, it could be setting up a promo code, or it could be the right format to write a blog or something that you hear? Well, the easiest way to do it is for me anyways, as either to trap it on video, or to record it, it’s easiest thing to do. And then you can go back for reference. But most of the time, like, I’ll even do it, I’ll forget. And then it’s like what the, and then I’m spending and wasting my time. And if you add up all that time, at the end of the year, it adds up to days of what you’ve wasted. You know, and there’s other things too, like one of the one of the things I like to and I’ve heard, I’ve talked about this a few times, but it’s Michael Gerber, he talks about the sales of the entrepreneurial roller coaster, where you know, the reason for writing standard operating procedures or processes, is because you’re an entrepreneur, you’re passionate about what you’re doing, you start to sell things start to take off, now you’re working, you know, a half hour before you get up a half hour before you go to bed, you know one of those scenarios, and you just can’t get everything done in a day. So you hire a VA, you tell the VA to do whatever, you don’t train them properly. There’s nothing for them to, you know, use as reference. And they do a terrible job. You get mad at them. You give them a second,

Vinay Patankar    22:25  

what happened to me? That’s why. 

Norman Ferrar   22:27  

Is that what happened to you? Yeah, yeah, so I fell into that, too. So I just didn’t do it, right, because I didn’t have the time to do it. And I didn’t understand it. So all of a sudden, you fire the person because they can’t do it better than you. You get in that sales roller coaster. Again, your sales dive, you start to build up, you hire somebody else, and you fire them because they can’t do their job. Well, what we’re going to show you today is take time, get one bloody thing done, like if you’re doing it manually when you have and we’ll get into process Street at the end. But when you have an automated system, it’s a no brainer. But manual, do it manually for you just get it done and understand the process. But if you don’t do it, man, it’s going to take its toll on you. So one of the things maybe we could touch on is we have hundreds of different repetitive tasks throughout, you know, throughout the day or throughout the year throughout whatever. Where do you focus? Is there a type of tasks that you would focus on? Yeah.

Vinay Patankar  23:35  

Yeah, there’s no answer to that business is like, it’s that question. It’s like, oh, you know, how do I grow my business? It’s there’s not an exact answer to that question. It depends on the current state of your business and what resources you have available to you and where the kind of gaps are in your business right now. But there’s a couple of places that I I asked people to look at the trying to figure things out. So this is this is a process question. But I actually think this is a pretty important, just, like entrepreneurial question as well, which is like, if you’re trying to start a business, in general, the advice that I give to people, if you’re trying to start a business or a new venture, the thing that the most important thing is focusing on bringing money in the door, right? Like, as an entrepreneur, people might get like, caught up on I’m going to do my logo, I’m going to do this, I’m going to like research product, I’m gonna like set up my corporation, I’m gonna like, there’s a million things that you can do that are like, not building product and selling. Right? And, and, you know, depending on your business, maybe that’s direct selling, or maybe that’s marketing selling, right, like, depending on what type of product you’re selling. But I always say that like, the most important thing in business is like bringing in the money. So whether that’s getting new customers, whether that’s getting money from investors, like whatever that is like, once you once you bring money in you can solve a lot of your other backend problems, right? You can pay a designer to do your logo. You can hire an engineer to build your website, you can do a lot of things. Once you have cash flow coming in. But if you don’t have that cash flow coming in at the beginning, there’s you’re very late your businesses, there’s nothing right you don’t have a business a business is based on cash flow like coming in, right. And so I think in general is it from as an entrepreneur, I think there’s lots of things that can distract you from like the the, the priority task, which is finding customers and bringing in revenue. And I think that’s a similar strategy, when you’re thinking about your processes to generally, I say, like, think about the processes closest to the money, right, as like, those are the things because those are the most important processes in your business. Because without bringing in money, your business has nothing, I tend to say that’s a good place to focus on first, because if you can solve that, and if you can make really make your your growth engine, your revenue engine, streamlined and efficient, and make it grow and scale, a lot of your other problems become a lot easier, you can hire two people, instead of hire one person, and they can both be not that good. But because you have two people, you kind of like handling the gaps like this. And that is 1000 thing you can invest in technology, you can do so many things that you can’t do if you don’t have that money coming in. So things related to whatever brings in the money for your business. So in Amazon, I’ll be looking at things relating to like products, product listings, so how do I get products up on the store? How do I, you know, optimize those products? How do I change out those products? So kind of like, you know, maybe like fulfillment? How do I like deliver that product to a customer? So kind of like core like product for like, you know, listing and delivery, fulfillment? And then the other one is marketing. So like, how am I actually then driving traffic to these listings, like those, if you figure out those two pieces of your Amazon business, a lot of the other stuff is pretty easy, right? Like, or maybe it’s not easy, but like, it’s easier than like, trying to build other things without kind of getting sales on the front end. So I would say focus there. And then start to think so then once you’ve got like a consistent reliable revenue engine in your business, then you can start to think about like, then you probably want to think about one of two options, depending on what your goals are. One, if your goal is growth, you want to think about like, okay, how can I grow more. And that’s normally comes down to hiring. So then you start thinking about how can I put processes in place for building out a team, hiring that team managing that team making that team efficient, so that team can continue to scale out our revenue engines. The other place to look might be like, kind of what what like strategic coach and things like that cool, like your zone of genius, which is there may be tasks that you’re really good at, that you find flow from, that you really enjoy doing that you excel at. And there may be tasks that drain your energy that you find it difficult that you have to like, you know, use willpower to power through and get them done. And that can be a you know, maybe those are the tasks that keeping you up at night or on the weekend and affecting you from being, you know, present with your family and things like that. And so that can be another really good place to look like what are the kind of tasks that are outside of your area of genius that really drain your energy that you don’t like doing, but are still required to move your business forward, that can be another good area to kind of look at not so much because it’s necessarily going to get you the most growth as fast as possible, but probably is going to get you the most like lifestyle return as fast as possible. So

Norman Ferrar  28:31  

yeah, that’s a that’s a great answer. And there’s so many things in Amazon, like if you take a look at your day to day, answering messages, getting back to feedback, setting up simple like the in, they have something called the brand analytics now in a brand’s column, if you’re not familiar with Amazon, and you can create an email sequence or not an email sequence, but you can send an email on an offer that you’re offering out people, this is very easy. But it’s something that you don’t necessarily do if you’re not using an app, you know, requesting a review. These are all simple things. But you also talked about something that a lot of people don’t think about. And that’s off Amazon. So what’s your social media policies look like? Yeah. Do you have a social media content calendar? How can you build that out? And these are all these

Vinay Patankar   29:28  

areas? Good example, like you said, Yeah, blogging or doing Yeah, YouTube videos or things like that, like content creation is a big one. Like, if you’re also running a Shopify store, then there’s all of that, right. Like there’s the Shopify store. There’s all the blogging, there’s maybe Facebook ads and like Google ads and all these other things that you’re kind of running outside of the Amazon world to the connecting to your star.

Norman Ferrar  29:51  

One of the things that we do, you can’t be an expert in everything. And you know, you fake it. If if you say you are a Like if you say you’re an expert and everything, okay, fine, but it’s not going to happen. So let’s say Google ads or Facebook ads, one of the things that we like to do in our team, is people work on their strengths. Like you said, why work on your weaknesses, it just causes stress. But if you work on the strengths, if you provide additional training, so that the person becomes an expert, they love what they’re doing, then great, but you also train them on how to write an SOP. So you’re not doing it, you’re not telling somebody how to do something that you’re not good at?

Vinay Patankar 30:34  

Yeah, it’s funny because like, you know, obviously, we make process management software. But making processes is not actually my favorite thing to do. I like the results of having processes in place, because that helps me scale. And lets me focus on my area of genius. But my air of genius is actually not writing processes, I do have an area of genius around like automating stuff, which is a little bit different. So there is kind of like systems building is one of my zones of genius, but documentation is not. And so I still have people on my team help me with that stuff as well.

Norman Ferrar  31:08  

I suck it like Zapier and stuff like that. I’m veterans happier than

Vinay Patankar   31:13  

I am it just like documentation, I’d say, Yeah, are you? Yeah.

Norman Ferrar   31:17  

Oh, we gotta go. Okay, so yeah, I absolutely know, and you know what? So I talk about all this SOPs, and you know, doing all this and automation. And yet, even in our company, I know that there’s ways that we can streamline even better, and we’re pretty efficient. But it’s not going because because I have the stumbling block on those automated, like with Zapier, I’ve got to find somebody that can come into the company and say, I’m going to take the control of this. And I’m going to, you know, create the automation process for all these different systems that are going to make it even that much better. Well, that’s

Vinay Patankar   31:56  

why we created the our process consulting team process straight, you know, that’s the giveaway we’re doing is like basically, exactly customers like you. That said, I know there’s more we can be doing. But my mind just doesn’t like work well with Zapier or with some of these automations or whatever. And so we have a team that can basically do that stuff. For me, we also have some partners as well we work with but yeah, it depends on how much work there is in the business, whether you want to bring somebody in full time to handle it all, or whether you just want to kind of outsource it for a few hours here or there. Like internally at our, you know, we have a whole what we call Reb ops team. And they’re all process like automation specialists. So we have like a whole team of people that are just like automating our sales for us, and you know, emails and apps and like, everything is going on.

Norman Ferrar   32:44  

So if I’m hearing you correctly, I should enter into the wheel of cow, Kelsey and Kelsey, take two people, and we’ll have a chance. Yeah, if you’re lucky, you might win. All right, there we go. Alright, so let’s talk about what things can what things can people do very generically. But what can you do to prepare to get your SOPs or your automation, whatever you like? To get it going? Are there a few steps that people should be looking at?

Vinay Patankar    33:16  

Yeah, so what we recommend is, well, I guess, firstly, to a lot of people processes can seem a little bit intimidating, people can maybe get a little bit overwhelmed by the prospect of having to think about everything that they’ve been doing in the business for the last year, and try to document all that seems like a very big project, it can create a lot of anxiety, especially when you’re already working on the weekends. And you’re a small business owner, and everything’s on fire. And you know, you’re you already don’t spend enough time with your family. And you’re like, shit, am I gonna like not, you know, Miss three more like dance recitals throughout this process document, it can be, you know, it can be very difficult and kind of intimidating thing for small businesses. You know, once once you’re a large enterprise, you can start to like dedicate resources. Like I said, we have a whole team that’s like, kind of like our process team. But when you’re a small business, you don’t have those resources. And, and so we we we see that be the reason that a lot of businesses don’t get going with processes. The number one reason why people don’t get on with their processes is I don’t have enough time, right? Like, that’s the number one reason. And so what we try to do is we try to give our customers a framework to be able to get going on their processes without having to invest a lot of time. That’s the big thing. If you can do it quickly without investing a lot of time, then you’re able to kind of start to quickly iterate on them, get some value out of them see that value and start to kind of invest into it more and more. So we recommend that people start with a minimum what we call a minimum viable process. Maybe you’ve heard of like a minimum viable product it comes from like Product Development in startups, we call it a minimum viable process, which is just like the minimum thing that you can do to get something down, written down and documented. And so there’s a couple of approaches to this. The other thing that we recommend is when you’re doing your minimum viable process, do it in a way that doesn’t require you to add additional blocks to your calendar for any reason, right, you don’t want to have a block in your account that says, like, Oh, this is two hours of process documentation. Because if you ask somebody to do that, and then again, there are small business owners already working on the weekends, they’re not going to have a two hour block that that means that, oh, I can’t actually do this, because then we’re going to find the time. So we try to get people to do it in a way where it essentially doesn’t take more time. So there’s a couple of strategies for this, what is the strategy that you brought up, which is, which I love we use all the time here is like, say you’re doing something, just record it, you know, go go free loom account, use QuickTime on your computer, and just say, I’m going to do a new, I’m going to add a new product to my Amazon store today, just before you start that hit record, and just add the product to your Amazon store and then hit stop. And that actually didn’t take you any additional time. And then take that video, maybe takes you a few minutes to just name it and uploaded somewhere. Last if you’re using something like Luma, or whatever. And now you’ve got like an MVP of that process, the issue that I have with video, and we still use video heavily because when you’re doing complicated things, it can be the best way to kind of explain something. But the issue that I have with video is that it can take a while to consume it. If you have like, recorded a 30 minute video of you doing a product listing, then the next time you want to go do that product listing, there’s no real way to actually like extract the information from that video, without consuming the video itself. Yeah, you can fast forward through it. And you can jump through a few bits and pieces here. But it’s still a little bit of a longer kind of consumption process. So the other way that we recommend people kind of get started with an MVP is just by doing a task list, right? So say you’re going and you’re doing listing a product on Amazon, pull up a document. And then as you’re going through listing the product, just list down the steps of what you’re doing, getting product image from this folder, maybe chucking a link to the folder that you’re already in, when you’re getting the image, you know, going to this page on Amazon tracking a link to that page. Like, you know, using this tag using this thing, he’s just like quickly, just like try to as you’re doing the task just quickly on the right, just like shoot down like 10 or 20 steps. Each, each step that you’re writing should just be a single sentence, maybe with a link, not even a sentence, just a few words, reminder with a link basically.

Vinay Patankar   37:41  

And it shouldn’t take you more than a few seconds to write each of those steps, no more than five or 10 minutes to write the kind of List of 10 or 20 steps, you have it up while you’re going through the toss. So you’re not trying to think about oh, what is that step that I’m doing. And don’t worry, it doesn’t need to be perfect, you don’t need to build it out, you know, it doesn’t matter if you miss steps, just kind of like do it in a way that’s not costing you time. So ideally, say the task was gonna take you 30 minutes, maybe it took you 33 minutes, maybe took me 35 minutes. But you also got this MVP list of like process document done in that same like 35 minute period. So it’s not really a, it’s a strategy to be able to get some documentation done without needing to add additional slots to your calendar. Right. So now you’ve got your MVP done. That’s just like the first kind of 10 or 20 tasks or steps in the process. Next time you go to do the process, pull up that document again. And then as you’re going through it just check like oh, is this correct? Is this correct? Yes, that’s Oh, I missed this extra step. All this is is additional linking here, and then just throw in an additional step. So now like as you’re going back, and you’re doing the task itself, you’re kind of just referencing the document, making sure that it looks accurate, making sure that it has the context and needs, maybe you can take a screenshot this time and chucking a couple of screenshots into your document, and kind of build out that document. So you’re kind of adding an extra three or five minutes of work to your process to that task as you do it. If you do that three, four or five times, you’re gonna end up with a pretty robust, robust, like process document procedure document for that particular task, then you can now take that task that that document handed off to say, a VA and then have them do a couple have them do it a couple of times. And then and then as they come back and you look at the work that they’ve done, you will say, Oh, they missed this. Let me add that to the process. Oh, they missed they were confused about that. Let me like clear that up on the process. And then now you’ve kind of done it five times. If you’ve done the task yourself, you’ve handed off the VA, maybe you’ve had to do a couple of training sessions and tighten up the document a couple of times. Now that document should be good that VA should continue to be able to do it after that after afterwards. And any new VA that comes in in the future should be able to execute that process and it hasn’t really taken too much additional time or time off your calendar. The biggest difference The moment where you hand off that document to somebody else, and you’re just kind of making sure that that gets done the first few times. But that’s going to happen anyway, whenever you’re hiring or training any anybody new to do any type of new task. So I really like this MVP approach, because it removes the objection. I don’t have time. And one objection people have.

Norman Ferrar  40:22  

Yeah, and if people do one, just one process a week, just 152 SOPs at the end of the year.

Vinay Patankar   40:34  

Yeah, and I don’t even like, Yeah, I mean, that’s a that’s a lot. That’s heaps, right. Like, like, if you can hand off 50 tasks, by the end of it to me, I actually wouldn’t be, I wouldn’t be building documentation just for documentation sake. Right. Like, I wouldn’t be building documentation, because just in case, maybe I’m going to need this documentation in the future, I’d probably say investing that time into growth is generally a better a better use of time, I build documentation, like when I need it. So it’s like, there’s like this program, Tim yagni, it’s like, he ain’t gonna need it yet or something. And so I kind of like take that approach. So once I feel like the pain for whatever reason that we talked about before, because I’m trying to grow, because I’m trying to, you know, get back time to improve my lifestyle, so I can focus on something else. And with that, I’m thinking about hiring, you know, full time, part time, agency, whatever, to start to scale that. That’s when I’m like, Okay, I’m going to want to hire someone in the next month, two months to do, I’m going to want to start offloading some of this, as I’m gearing up to start offloading it, I’m now creating my process documentation as I’m doing that week one, week two, week three, and then on week four, I then hand that off, do some training. And then once the whole task is no longer a task, under my responsibility, I’ve now opened up new time in my calendar, I’ll then start to look at the next process. I want to offload. Because I’m not I don’t want to just be like doing work without like gaining back time myself.

Norman Farrar   42:10  

Right? It looks like we’re gonna run late today. Do you have time to go past one o’clock?

Vinay Patankar  42:15  

I do have another I actually have another call at one but I can do it. Okay, sir.

Norman Ferrar  42:19  

All right. So we’ll start answering the questions. Just a reminder that hashtag Kelsey or tag two people to enter in, you could have a chance to win the trial and extended trial period from 14 to 60 days, or one hour consult with an ace team. Okay, so let’s get to the questions then. Kelsey, I do have a ton of others. Are you able to come back another day? Me? Yeah, that would be awesome. Because there’s so many questions that I have here. But okay, some of the questions.

Kelsey   42:50  

Yeah. And I think for the we’ll have Kelsey will do the questions. We’ll just jump into the questions and then the name when you have to get going. We can just carry on and do the we’ll have Kelsey, when you’re not here. Just so you’re not waiting for us for that. Okay, from Simon. I am 18 years into running my business. That’s 1000s of processes locked in my head? How the heck do I drop every task and procedure into SOPs?

Norman Ferrar  43:15  

stopped drinking? Well, hi, I’m sorry, sorry, this OSI he’s, he’s a regular I can say that. But

Vinay Patankar    43:24  

um, so how the heck do I drop every task and procedure in SP So firstly, don’t do that don’t even think that you need to do that you don’t need to drop every task and procedure and SOPs, that’s the immediate nonstarter like, attitude that I was talking about, and that’s gonna cause you to get paralyzed to freeze and just think this is an impossible project, that I’m never going to be able to get off the ground. So like most companies, like it’s kind of like, again, it’s like a software term, like code test coverage, like most most apps that you use, don’t have 100% test coverage, they just have like 50% test coverage, 60% test coverage, which means that like, they’ve, they’ve built test coverage for like, the most critical parts of the product, but they don’t have it for every single part of the product, cuz it’s just too inefficient to try to have coverage for all the little edge case things that happen in the business. Like, at some point, a task is too small that building the process actually is more work than doing the task itself. And that’s not actually useful. So it’s all about prioritization. Right? What is your number one most important process? What is the most important thing in your business? I would start there, especially if I’m focused on growth. And so like, like we talked about earlier, that’s probably something around the money. The other place, if you’re focused on lifestyle might be like, what’s the thing that I hate the most? And, and like hate doing the most, that causes me the most pain and maybe think about that, and I wouldn’t, I would make sure that like that whole task is off my plate, like I’ve built the process works. I’ve trained somebody, this is no longer a thing that I have to do anymore. And once I’ve completely removed that off my plate, then I’ll go look at the next party. And I wouldn’t be thinking about that. Just thinking one at a time.

Norman Ferrar  45:01  

That’s great advice. And yeah, I’m kind of wondering, Marsha Reese, I saw her in the comment section. Wondering if you’re using SOPs? If so how are you using them? Maybe you can answer that in the Facebook group. But Marsha has had over a billion dollars in sales. She’s Venters. Yeah, yeah, she’s fantastic. And Simon too, he’s, he’s a powerhouse. And I’m sure there’s a ton of other people here that have just a ton of sales. But if you are one of those people that are using it, I’d really like to open up a discussion in our Facebook group about this, because I think it’s something that we all need to get better at. Maybe Marshall is the best at it. I don’t know. But anyways, let’s, uh, let’s see what we can do in the group. Alright, next.

Vinay Patankar   45:49  

Also, just sorry, offline. Like, if you want to send me those details. I could have a couple of people from our team join the Facebook group that may be yes.

Norman Ferrar   45:55  

Oh, that would be awesome as well. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah.

Kelsey   45:58  

Yeah. Send that over. All right. Next one, from Jessica, assume one test, say creating a listing as many components in that listing, copy photos layout? How do you organize that one total task for a team to coordinate all the moving parts?

Vinay Patankar   46:14  

Well, there’s this product called process tree that does that. Yeah, like, you know, that’s where things get more complicated, right? Like, as a process becomes more complex, like the process of building an iPhone or something? How do you organize that into like a document? It’s like, you know, there’s like, a million people working on that or something. So yeah, as processes get more complex, you know, you start just want to ship them off just pure documentation and into systems. Because systems allow you to manage much more complex processes, you can say, like, oh, how do I like, file my financial report, for Citi Group to the SEC, or something like, you’re probably not going to have a document that explains that you’re going to have a massive oracle system that’s like running all of that, because it’s just insanely complex. So yeah, that’s, that’s what we’d recommend start using technology. So you know, you’ve got something, you’ve got multiple teams, and you’ve got to design them, if you’ve got a market, maybe you’ve got a manager, you need to approve something, you’ve got a VA, you’ve got all these different people. And then you have like, 50 products that you’re doing at once, you know, you need to track all those different products and say, Oh, what’s the status of this? And what’s the status of that one, like, what everything’s just written down in a document is only so much you can do. And this actually kind of brings me into like, what process st does. So we kind of talked about that in the beginning, we call it modern process management. And this is like, what we what we see is like the key difference between just like kind of original E Myth like process, build your systems, policies and procedures, to kind of like modern process management, which is integrating technology, right. So process treat as a product, like Firstly, we have a free knowledge base product. So if you just do want to just document your knowledge, and this is actually a new a new product, I don’t know how much of you know about this norm, but like, if you do just want to document your your policies and procedures and just write them down, we actually give 100% free knowledge base for people to use. But the thing that makes our platform, a modern process management platform, and not just like a documentation platform, which is you know, you can do that anywhere. And it’s not really a valuable thing, which is why we give it away for free, is like we take your team’s recurring processes that are probably written down in a doc somewhere that were either in our platform or somewhere else, or maybe they just in people’s heads, and we turn those into interactive workflows. So now the documentation lives in the same place where the work happens, you can add automations integrations, automate assignments and handoffs, between different people in the team give you analytics and insights and transparency into everything what’s going on. So you can really take you can manage these these processes in an efficient distributed, you know, modern way. So we got to think about it, like the difference between like a paper map, and GPS, you know, a paper map is like, you’ve just documented the knowledge, right? Like, you know, this is like how the territory is structured. But there’s no like, kind of, there’s no technology woven into that. And the knowledge is disconnected from the work where the work is actually happening, you kind of have to go somewhere, read about how to do it, then come over here, and then go like implemented. Whereas like with GPS, you know, you’ve got the knowledge, but that’s like, integrated into a device that like knows where you currently are, and is in real time telling you what needs to happen, giving you visibility into your current place, and predicting what’s going to happen next, and giving you kind of like, nudges and knowledge about how to kind of complete the task you’re trying to complete. We’re just kind of getting getting somewhere in that example. And so yeah, and across the street, you can build workflows that are super simple to build. You don’t need to be technical or know how to code we integrate with all the other SAS products, you know, Zapier or your CRMs and emailing tools and Amazon and Facebook and all that stuff. And yeah, it lets you kind of like bring all your knowledge into one place and and manage it in a much more modern way.

Norman Ferrar   50:03  

It’s super simple to I don’t I don’t have an affiliate or anything I, I brought anyone. Now there we go. But uh, you know, I brought it Vinnie on because I’ve used the product before it was a great product. It’s extremely simple step by step. But just check it out. If you if you want to just go in and try something out. It’s like it’s a 14 day free trial. And you can just see for yourself, and it’s very inexpensive. But the other thing I’m curious, is we have

Vinay Patankar    50:41  

the 14 day free trial of the workload product. Yeah, our knowledge base products is 100%. Free, so that doesn’t have a trial. And you can use that forever.

Norman Ferrar   50:48  

Yeah. So I have a question, because I’m thinking back because we we ended up creating teams of SOP developers, so everybody on the team knows how to do it, we kind of did it manually. I’m trying to think back at the time, are you able to download the process into a PDF and then provide it to a contractor instead of having the contractor login? Yeah,

Vinay Patankar  51:15  

yeah, you can download the PDF, you can also just create, like a share link, like a dropbox link, and send it to them. So they don’t need a login. And they can just do it like, well, you can actually have them run it. So you can track like what their progress is and get them to, you know, fill in data, upload files, fill out forms, do things like that

Norman Ferrar   51:33  

as well. Oh, very good. So one of the things So, Jessica, Rosalyn, just back to that question that you have. So we also work with and you were talking about CRMs. But we work with teamwork. And within teamwork, they have a template similar to like within your product, you have the ability to have these tasks and subtasks. Well, we do that exactly. So if we have listing optimizations, and launch and rank strategies, you might have those two tasks. But under those two tasks, there’s 279 subtasks, you can use one, or you can use all 279 When building a listing, but they’re all there that you can pick. And also with that you’ve got your task, or you’ve got your SOP, but you have your template, and we like to put a video there because some people rather watch a video then kind of go through the SOP, but they’re there to back each other up. Yeah.

Vinay Patankar    52:31  

One good strategy, this is a slight one. But one good strategy, if you do have assistants to like, build out your SOPs, he’s actually used both the strategies that I mentioned. So you record a video of you doing the task, then you give the video to a VA and you have the VA turn that into the process document and embed the video at the top of the document. So now you actually can have somebody who can scan the document and consume it quickly if they try to just get some done or find like, Oh, what’s that link I need? Or what’s that, like? You know, what’s that one field that I’m supposed to fill out, they don’t have to like consume a whole 30 minute video, but it saves you from having to write the document because you can just record the video and hand that off to somebody else to make. And yeah, that’s a great point. I was gonna bring that up to not trying to, obviously, obviously try and promote my product. But like, there are many different technologies you can use to track people doing work, you know, all the project management apps, you know, notion you can use Google Sheets, like there’s lots of different ways that you can turn it into a bit more of like a modern, like interactive way of tracking that work than just it being a document.

Norman Ferrar   53:32  

Yeah. Yeah. So oh, there was another two Oh, this is a last tip. Because you have to see, we’ll have Kelsey, you’ve never seen it before. But anyways, one of the tips that we provide, anybody that’s training with us, is also once you get past, like you were talking about just very briefly just describe it, and then break it in, like add a point at a point at a checklist. But we break it into a ton of steps. If that cursor moves from bottom left to top right, we capture that, because that’s where you’re going to lose somebody, I’ll give you a great example. If you tell somebody to log into Seller Central and go and add user permissions. And you show the drop down with a screenshot of the drop down with the user permissions, you might miss the step of luck, I log into Seller Central click Settings, persons lost right off the bat, they don’t know what you’re talking about. You just assume that they know to hit settings. So as trap is many mouse movements or any dropdowns make sure you you put in more steps, the more steps you put in, the less chance people are going to get confused.

Vinay Patankar    54:46  

Yeah, it’s a balance between quality and speed, basically. Right? So it depends on the task that you’re doing. Like if you know for example, we have like lawyers and we have you know For people that are working in kind of like dangerous environments, like we have a nuclear power plant, for example, right as customers. And so for them, they want every single little thing very, very carefully checked, because a single mistake for a lawyer could be 10s of 1000s, or hundreds of 1000s of dollars in liability. And for a nuclear power plant, you know. So those, those types of businesses are very much more focused on quality, over efficiency. But maybe if like, the process is like answering a customer support ticket, like there’s probably some type of balance between speed and quality, you maybe don’t want people to spend two hours on each ticket, making sure that they’ve checked every single thing, before they answer that ticket. Like maybe it’s okay to have like a 90%, like, you know, quality mark on the ticket, but it’d be done in 10 minutes, instead of like, 100% quality mark, but it’d be done in two hours. And so there is some type of balance there. And it depends on the particular process that you’re that you want, and that you’re doing and how much you care about the quality of that process versus the speed. There’s also other things like, like Team happiness, for example, like if you give to somebody a giant, giant, annoying checklist that they have to do every time and it’s and it’s not really that important that actually might maybe make them not enjoy their job that much. Yeah. So I try to say like, you want to have the least amount of steps for you to be able to complete the process of the quality that you want to be completed that because you can definitely kind of get too deep in process. And then it feels like it’s quite bureaucratic and micromanaged. And that’s kind of like what working in government or something is they’ve kind of like gone a little bit overboard on their processes. And then it can be like, Oh, I have to fill out like 45 forms to like, get a pen, you know, and, and at some point, it’s like, okay, this like, doesn’t make sense anymore. The process is like, too heavy here. So I think it’s an it’s an interesting balance that you want to play with.

Norman Ferrar  56:53  

Yeah, well, we only have 44 forms that you have to fill out. 45. That would be crazy. But okay, so let’s get over it. Look, tell us. Why don’t we put the questions into the group, and we’ll see if the neighs team can answer some of those questions later on. Yep, totally. Okay, so let’s get to the wheel of Kelsey.

Kelsey   57:16  

Make this fast. Vinay. Here we go the wheel of Kelsey. Oh, right. Thank you, everyone who entered. If you are the winner of today’s show, please email me at K at lunch with Lauren calm.

Norman Ferrar   57:43  

You did enter us right.

Kelsey  57:48  

Oh, is this a new winner? Who’s that? Surprise. All right. Congratulations, congrats. So especially if you’re from YouTube, please email me Kate at lunch with Norm calm so I can connect you. Oh, right. Okay, so

Norman Ferrar   58:07  

that’s it. So thank you, Vinay, for coming on. I mean, this has been great. I’d love to have you back on to the podcast. Just quickly, contact information if anybody wants to reach out and contact your team.

Vinay Patankar    58:22  

Yeah, totally. So process that St. Is, is that website, you can go you can sign up for a free account and play around with it there. And then just support at process that st is our team. Also, we have like an intercom chat bot with live chat. We have 24 by five support, I think. So yeah. You can jump on and chat with our team have any questions there. And we have YouTube channel and blog with lots and lots of content, hundreds of posts. So pretty easy to find us.

Norman Ferrar  58:52  

Yeah. And I think when I signed up there was a, an email sequence that comes out to that helps describe the process right. Is that correct?

Vinay Patankar   59:00  

Yeah, definitely. We’re, we’re tweaking that right now. So I’m not sure it was gonna be the same but yeah, definitely.

Norman Ferrar  59:05  

Okay. Very good. I know you got to run. Thanks for staying on board. Yeah, we’re on time almost three minutes late. has been

Vinay Patankar  59:13  

great. Really appreciate it. All right. We’ll see you later. Awesome. Thanks. Have a good day.

Norman Ferrar   59:17  

Yeah. Okay, everybody. So I hope you enjoyed that. You know, I’d love to have a back on and, you know, talk about what mistakes people are making or there’s a variety of other questions. So hopefully we can get them on fairly soon. But on to or Wednesday, we’ve got Nick pen off coming on from Hello tax. And he’s an interesting guy. We’re going to be talking about expansion to the EU. For us e commerce sellers. So that should be very interesting. I’ve had in depth conversations with Nick, a very intelligent guy, and looking forward to having him on. Before we get going. I just wanted to give a big shout out to global wired advisors And thank you for sponsoring the podcast today. Global wired advisors is a leading digital bank focused on optimizing your business sales process. We just talk about processes. For more information, contact Chris and his team over at global wired advisors.com. All right, Mr. Kells, where are ya? Oh, before we talk about anything else, so if anybody is going over to on November the second and wants to go to the powwow Amazon powwow in Miami, let us know we’ve got a free ticket to giveaway. And as of right now, there is a great conference going on holiday holiday growth hackers Summit. And that’s with Josh Marcelin. And Darryl Hill. Got some great speakers over there. It’s from the 18th. Until the 20th. I’ll be speaking at it. And these are long talks. My presentations, 90 minutes to two hours long. Oh, that’s a lot of talking. That’s more than lunch with norm. So anyways, check that out. Kelsey will put the the link in there, and it is free. So just check it out. I think it’ll be just a ton of information for you guys to check out. All right now, Kelsey.

Kelsey   1:01:21  

I just posted that link to I made it’s

Norman Ferrar  1:01:24  

how many times I say checkout, by the way, is realized I said that federalism times? Yeah.

Kelsey  1:01:31  

But it’s all good. Okay, so yeah, if you’re interested in the event norm is talking about this is the link here. So you can just click on that. And yeah, hopefully you enjoyed today’s show. I know. Norm is a bit of a nerd when it comes to SOPs. But it’s a it’s a cool topic. And I’m actually really, I really enjoy these talks, because we’ve had, I think, Pip Harlan to talk about this, and I think somewhere Rabinovich and a couple other guests talk about this topic. So definitely, if you enjoyed today’s show, you can go over and check those out as well. And let me see. We do have like so for the Miami firewall that giveaways today with that ticket will we’re just we’ll announce more information maybe on the next podcast. So just tune in for that. Also, we have a special giveaway from Tony Sager that we’re going to be doing that sometime this week. He’s offering a special prize

Norman Ferrar  1:02:32  

to our Thank you, Tony for that. That’s cool. Yeah.

Kelsey   1:02:34  

So stick around for that. So we got lots happening. And yeah, I think that’s about it. If you haven’t yet, please smash those like buttons, get us those thumbs up, go in, share it out to your friends and family who are interested in Amazon e commerce. And yeah, I think that’s about it. If you’re interested in our membership program, we do have that option available. It’s basically q&a sessions with me and norm. We have a great community where there’s about 15 people in total. And you can do everything from just buying us a monthly cup of coffee to pretty much a weekly group session with us, which is pretty cool with and that includes like guest lessons as

Norman Ferrar  1:03:16  

well. So it’s not a podcast. It’s it. Yeah, yeah.

Kelsey   1:03:20  

This is actually like, you send us your questions and we answer them for you like brain training. Yeah, yeah. So that’s just lunch with Norm calm, and you just click on the membership area, and that’ll take you there. But that’s it.

Norman Ferrar  1:03:32  

Alright, so thank you for tuning in today. And you can tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at noon, Eastern Standard Time. And thanks for watching. Thanks for being part of the community. We couldn’t do this podcast without you guys while we could but we just be talking to ourselves. That wouldn’t be too interesting. So thank you for being part of the nation and enjoy the rest of your day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai