[00:00:09.020] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:09.400] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:09.590] - Gordon
My name is Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:11.860] - Taylor
I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:14.060] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And welcome back.
[00:00:24.360] - Taylor
Welcome back.
[00:00:25.180] - Gordon
We've had two weeks now without an episode, and I apologise for that. Just things getting in the way, really, wasn't it?
[00:00:32.700] - Taylor
I was travelling.
[00:00:34.080] - Gordon
That's right. You were travelling. Where did you go?
[00:00:36.340] - Taylor
I went to Belfast.
[00:00:38.050] - Gordon
Yeah. And how was Belfast?
[00:00:39.860] - Taylor
It was good. It was similar to London because it's obviously still the UK. It was similar to London, so it was a lot of things that I already knew how everything worked, how things look, how the culture is, I guess. But then there was lots of differences. It's a lot slower over there. People are just not in as much of a rush. They have a different kind of city centre in terms of the way things are laid out and the types of people that are there. They speak funny. Well, compared to Londoners, they speak differently. Yeah, it was really good. I went out drinking with some people from the hostel that I was staying in, which was good fun. I met up with one of my friends that lives out there, which I've been speaking to regularly for the past year and a half ish, which was awesome to meet. We just hung out and then just generally just explored the city. And I got my mug so all is good.
[00:01:44.960] - Gordon
Yay! That's really good news. After apologising for the last two weeks of no episodes, we may not have an episode next week either, because you're travelling again.
[00:01:56.790] - Taylor
I am indeed, yes. I'm going to Prague for my December trip. That should be a good fun as well. I think I'm going to go to the Christmas markets. People have said they were really good. And just explore the city, see what it's like. It should be probably a lot colder than where we are, but I'll take lots of layers and hopefully make some friends.
[00:02:18.690] - Gordon
Very good. We will try and get an episode for you, but chances are it's not going to be possible. We're getting very close to the end of this season, actually. What's going to be the next colour? For those who've been with us before, we change the colour of our seasons every time we go into a new season. Our new season starts in January. We start January through to December. So what do you think our next colour is going to be for our episodes? Our accent colour.
[00:02:49.000] - Taylor
We don't even know.
[00:02:49.870] - Gordon
We don't even know. We haven't discussed it. Leave your comments below if you're on YouTube, and let us know what you think the next episode or the next season colour should be, and we'll have a look and make a decision.
[00:03:03.180] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:03:03.490] - Gordon
You might be able to tell. It's got to that time of year when everyone's getting colds, and my voice has been a little bit off over the last week or so, and it's still a little bit croaky, but it is coming back again now. It was at the point where I couldn't actually talk for a little bit, and then it was really a real struggle to talk. And it's much better now, although I may still be coughing through this. Here we go. There you go, case in point. Isn't it funny how when you say something like coughing and sneezing, your brain thinks about it and you end up doing it? It's so weird. Let's get straight into our topics for the week. Taylor, do you want to go first?
[00:03:47.740] - Taylor
Yes. This week I came across a new app called 'Hazel'. Now, Hazel allows you to organise your downloads folder, essentially. I think we're all guilty of this where you download something and it's fine, but you just leave it there. You then end up downloading another five things that day, another 10 things the next day, another five things the next day, and you just end up with a downloads folder full of rubbish. It's hard to find the documents that are important, the ones that you should be organising into your actual documents folder, and the ones that are just rubbish, and you just downloaded them to check something, or you've used it and you didn't clean it up after yourself. So what Hazel does is it allows you to run or set up automations to watch for certain rules and automatically acts upon them. So, some examples could be you download an image, for example, and it obviously has the extension .jpeg .png, something like that. Hazel can take that and move it into a folder called 'Images' inside of your downloads folder. So whenever you download an image, it will automatically get moved into that folder. Now, this is really useful because it means whenever you download something, you relatively know where that file is going to be. You could do the same for all of the different file types. You have movies, music, PDFs, documents, things like that. But it goes a step further where you can run, you can rename files. Based on the metadata of the file, you can run certain automations and rules. Now we have something similar in Apple Mail built-in where you can run rules based on emails. So one of the email automations I have is when I get an email from Cineworld, I create a new calendar event in our Apple Calendar and I pull all the details from the email using an Apple script and it creates all the details for me: the time of the event, the name of the film, the location. We also have it set up so that it removes the adverts at the beginning of the film. So if it says-
[00:06:17.350] - Gordon
Hang on, we must clarify. We're not actually hacking into the cinema and stopping the adverts from playing. What we're doing is we're figuring out the start time that the Cinema tell us and how long the adverts are going to be and what time the actual film starts. And we're deducting that amount of time minus a little bit just to give us a few minutes leeway, just so that we know what time the actual film is going to start, rather the trailers, because we like the trailers.
[00:06:47.620] - Taylor
Yeah. I have an automation that runs that whenever it basically watches for emails from Cineworld. And it does essentially the same thing, but for all your files and things like that. So one thing I'm working on is creating an automation so that when I am editing videos or audio or any file that is sequential. So it could be even like photos, for example, when I download photos from a client's website, it will automatically rename all of the files in that folder with the folder name hyphen, and then basically append a number. That makes it really easy for me to find and also just keeps it tidy when you're uploading files to website, for example.
[00:07:33.670] - Gordon
Yeah, that's very good. And I'm guessing that you can do other things and move files from other places, not just the download folder.
[00:07:41.100] - Taylor
Yes. So the downloads folder was the best example, but you can do this for any folder on your computer. I believe it works with external drives. And yeah, you can move files, copy files, delete files. They have a built-in feature that you can clean up your bin, for example, if you delete files. And then also any files that didn't finish downloading, got part way through and didn't finish, it will automatically delete them. So yeah, there are lots and lots of rules you can set up, which should hopefully help me keep on top of my downloads folder, but also make it easier to keep track of where everything goes.
[00:08:21.640] - Gordon
So I've got two things that I've just thought of that might be of interest. One is if you want to put something into Dropbox, because it's a folder on your computer, you can specify that specific files go into your Dropbox in a particular place, for example, taking them off your computer. So if you do download them, you're already moving them out of your storage into external cloud storage.
[00:08:45.450] - Taylor
Yep.
[00:08:45.720] - Gordon
And the other thing is I've got an app called Flickr, which is for my Flickr account, which is for photos and images that you can upload, and it watches a folder, and every time something is put in there, it'll automatically upload those to Flickr. Now, the only reason I can do that is because the Flickr app has a folder that you can choose that it then watches. But if I wanted to put something up to Evernote or I wanted to load something up into some cloud storage or send by WeTransfer or something, I could potentially set up an Apple script automation to act on that trigger when that file exists and do everything for me so that I can effectively do what Flickr is doing, but under my own rules.
[00:09:36.490] - Taylor
Yeah. I mean, you could even go a step further for your Lightroom photos, for example. You could have it so that when you export your files, it maybe takes the folder name that you've got in Lightroom, automatically renames them and then moves them into Flickr, for example.
[00:09:54.460] - Gordon
Very good.
[00:09:54.720] - Taylor
So you could set up your own automation for that. But yeah, and then you wouldn't have to worry about anything like that.
[00:10:01.460] - Gordon
Yeah, that sounds very good. I believe it's only a Mac app, isn't that right?
[00:10:04.880] - Taylor
Yes. But there might be similar alternatives for Windows.
[00:10:09.440] - Gordon
But this podcast and vidcast is all about things that we discover, things that affect us. We're on Macs here so that's why we're talking about Mac software. What we'll do is we'll put a link to it in the show notes so that you'll be able to see that. It'll either be under the video or it'll be in the show notes for the episode on the website. Anything else you want to say about that?
[00:10:32.750] - Taylor
I don't think so. I'll see how I get on and see what cool automations I can come up with.
[00:10:37.710] - Gordon
Yeah, very good. I mentioned this, I think last time we spoke, and that's debt within your business. There's two main types of debt that you can get in your business, only one of which I have any experience with. The first debt I'll talk about is the one I don't have an experience with, and that is borrowing money to allow you to do something. Now it could be that that is to start up the business, it could be to expand the business, it could be to get premises or new staff members or whatever it is, you're taking out a loan to allow you to do that. That could be a loan from the bank, it could be a loan from family and friends. Although I always recommend not to do that just because it's nice to have them as family and friends and not get into a situation where money is being owed because that does mess up an awful lot of friendships. But you may have an investor and you're borrowing money from them so that you can do something within your business. Now, I don't have a lot of experience with this, but I do have experience through other friends. And I do know that one of the pitfalls is trying to grow too fast. Having a huge loan so that you can get a lot of equipment or a lot of staff or a lot of space, and then finding that you've grown from this, which is very small, to this, which is huge, but you don't actually have the marketing that's growing with it to allow you to take the orders that you need to be able to service that loan and to be able to pay it back, so that you can become debt-free effectively, which is what all businesses are aiming for. So that's the first type of debt. I don't know a great deal about that because I grew very slowly with both the magic side and with the Drayson Design, graphic design and website building side of it. My investment was time, and that was for learning and so forth. And as I was earning money, I was then putting that money back into the business again, allowing myself to have enough money to live and to pay all my bills, but whatever was left over, went back into the business to build it up. So I've effectively paid for my business myself. I've loaned the money by myself, which means that all the assets I have are mine, I own them. Should I decide to sell them at any time I can liquidate that back into cash and all the assets are still within my ownership. So that is the setup and debt type of debt that we're talking about here. The other type of debt is when you do work for a customer and they then owe you money. So it's debt in the other way, if you like. Now, that is a lot more difficult to manage, and it is the lifeblood of a small business. You need to have this money coming in so that you can pay your bills on a monthly basis and make sure that your turnover and your cash flow is working for you and your business. There's no point doing some work for someone and having them pay you in 90 days when you've got expenses that you had to pay out to be able to do that job, which need to go out before the 90 days when you get paid. The problem with that is you're using money from previous jobs to pay for the next jobs, and then if anything goes wrong with that payment, well, then you're struggling to then be able to do the next job because you haven't got the money from the previous one to pay for it. So ideally, you want a job to pay for itself. There's several ways to do this. One is to work out a system where you are paid upfront. Now, it could be that you're paid a percentage upfront and then a percentage on completion, which is what I tend to do when I do web design. There's also services and products that I sell. Again, they're digital products, so things like hosting and that sort of thing, and they're paid upfront. I normally do renewals of domain names and hosting, and they're paid at the beginning of the period. If it's a one year hosting, they pay at the beginning of that one year, covers them for the hosting, comes up to the end - 30 days before I send them message, send them an email. "Would you like to renew?" They just have to reply yes or no. If they say yes, I renew it. I send them a bill, they pay, and so we go on. For the magic, it's a bit different because I have to go out and do the job, so I get paid a booking fee, which is a very small amount in comparison to the total job cost. I then go and do the job and payment for me on those jobs is either before or on the day. If I haven't been paid beforehand, some people like to pay beforehand, if they don't then I get paid on the day. Again, sometimes I run into problems when it's big companies that I'm working for and they say, "Yeah, we have a 30-day payment term." I say, "Yeah, but I'm sorry, I'm not buying from you. You're buying from me. Therefore, it's my payment terms that you need to follow." And as long as you talk to these people beforehand and you send them invoices, you make sure they've got all the paperwork they need, quite often they can fit in with you and your terms. But you need to work with them to make sure they understand what you're expecting, and you need to understand what their system is so you can be ahead of the game, if you like. There's several companies with magic, for example, that have 30-day payment terms, and I send my invoice in when they book, which is normally more than 30 days, but I date the invoice for the day I send it, not for the date of the event. Because if I did that, it would then only get paid 30 days after the event. But if I give it to them with the invoice date of when they booked it, 30 days after that is normally when I'm going to be doing the show or before I'm going to be doing the show, and quite often it gets paid before I even turn up, which is great. But you need to manage those expectations within your business and within the businesses that you're talking to. Chasing debt is always problematic. It's something that every small business owner struggles with because they don't want to upset people. They don't want to ring up and say, "Oi, you owe me money. Just get it paid." You get fobbed off by certain people who say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." They used to say, "The cheque's in the post." Well, they don't say that anymore. They say, "Yeah, we'll get round to it. It's on our payroll. Our payroll is going to be in two weeks' time." You go, "Well, yeah, okay, but it's already late, so that needs paying before your new payroll. It should have been on your last payroll, but you didn't make it." One of the nicest ways of doing this is to automate it. I have emails that go out to people chasing for payment, and they get several emails. If they haven't paid by the end of that, and the way I, with my design side... Oh, pardon me. With the design side, I ask people to let me know when they've made payment, because normally it's by Bacs. And what I want to do is go into my bank account, see the payment, mark it as paid, which will then stop the emails from going out and hassling people. If they don't email me to let me know they've paid, they'll continue to get the messages. And quite often they'll come back to that and say, "I paid." And I go, "Oh, thank you very much. I didn't get the email to tell me you paid." They go, "Oh, I didn't know I had to." You're training your customers in that way. But once the automation has finished and they've had three or four reminder emails over a period of time, then it comes to me and it sends me an email saying, "This person hasn't paid. You need to chase them up." It's at that point that I'll ring them up and I'll say, "This is overdue. It was due on this date. That was a month and a half ago now. It really needs paying today. I can take a card over the phone." Which is really good. Don't like doing that, but if it means I get paid there and then, I'll pay the percentage, and it means that I won't have to spend more time chasing this payment in the future.
[00:19:34.740] - Taylor
Yeah. Similar to that is I used to do it manually where I'd ask people if they wanted to renew and things like that. I found that I spent more time than I wanted to be doing that. I moved to having a credit card on file and automatic renewals. I've moved to more of a monthly subscription. So rather than billing for the year, I do it on a monthly. I find that works better for me, although I do probably take a credit card hit for Stripe or whatever. I find for me the time it saves me, the hassle it saves me. And I find... I think I found that people stay on the care plans a lot longer because I think if you have a monthly subscription, you stay on it longer than if you are paying it yearly because it comes up to review, whereas with monthly ones, they just roll over. And it's also good for cash flow because I can see, "okay, this is how much I have coming in every month guaranteed." So for me, yeah, it works well. Clients enjoy it for the cash flow percentage. And it's a peace of mind for both of us. They don't have to worry about having to pay something manually. I don't have to chase. The only time I have to chase is if a card expires, but I can get that changed before it happens. And yeah, it's for me, just peace of mind.
[00:21:04.300] - Gordon
Yeah, it's very good. The leverage that we have as web designers and hosting companies over customers is similar to that of a fuel company, if you like. So if you don't pay your electric bill, they'll turn your electric off. They'll basically stop you having electric, at which point you'll scramble to find the money or you'll end up paying them if you just forgot and your electric gets turned back on again. We are very similar because we can turn off a website. If payment hasn't happened or we haven't received the money that was agreed for whatever reason, we can just turn off the website. And it's amazing how quickly people will ring you to tell you their website's down and you go, "Yeah, we did warn you. Payment is outstanding; once it's paid it will go back up again." And that will then put a red flag on this customer for me. So it'll mean that I'll pay more attention to this customer in the future and give them maybe a little bit more notice to make payment, because if that's how long it takes them to process a payment in their system, then by giving them just a little bit of extra time, you're giving them the same amount of time that you would give someone else who does pay pretty much immediately. And for me, I find that I have customers who, as soon as they received the first email for renewal, it just says, "Would you like to renew?" They'll be on the phone and they'll say, "Yeah, I'd like to renew. How can I make payment?" It's like, "Right, okay, 30 days. You've got 30 days." And then there are other customers who have the four emails, and it's like, "Tomorrow is the deadline. If we don't hear from you, we're going to cancel the service." And they'll ring up then or they'll email and make payment at that point. You get to know these types of customers who jump on something and make sure they're organised, and then the others who just leave it and go, "Yeah, we'll deal with that when it's important." And that's quite important to know. And every now and then, very rare, but every now and then you get a customer that you just don't get on with because either you're spending way too much time chasing for money, more time than the actual job took sometimes, or you just, you're finding you're clashing with them and they're not listening to your expertise, which is the reason they've come to you in the first place. Every now and then you have to say goodbye to a customer and you have to fire them. This is something that is still not something that I did right at the beginning of my business. It's definitely a newer thing. When you think of being fired, you normally talk about an employee, and firing a customer just sounds really weird because it's effectively what you are doing. You're basically cutting them loose and saying, "Look, I don't wish to have you as a customer anymore, so I'm firing you." But you don't say it in those terms. You just say, "Look, we're going to part company. I don't wish to host your website anymore. If I can help move it again to somewhere else, let me know. Otherwise, this will be the cut-off date." But I think you need to do that with some customers because they just suck all the energy out of you, don't they? You end up spending much, much more time on tiny little jobs that should be like five minutes. Because they aren't responsive or they take their time to respond to you, you end up with a five minute job taking three weeks. Here and there and bits of time, and it all mounts up. You find that you're not actually being productive for the money that you're earning from that customer. Firing them and sending them on their way to someone else is the only option. Sometimes you threaten this to people and they go, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I'll pay you right now." Then you just have to say, "Right, I do need the money by this date otherwise..." And you don't have to say anything else, because they now have been in the situation when they understood that they were going to lose your services, and therefore they're going to make sure they do what they need to do to keep you. I haven't had to do that very often. Maybe twice in my business lifetime, but yeah, it's not a nice thing to do, but it is important for your own health as well.
[00:25:37.690] - Taylor
Sometimes you just outgrow companies as well. You change direction for your company, whether or not that's who you work for, the type of niche you work for, whether that is the size of clients you work with. Like you say, sometimes smaller clients only want small changes, but your hourly rate is, now because you work with bigger clients, is a lot more. And so it just isn't cost effective for either of you to work together. So sometimes it can be because you're just not compatible anymore because of business changes. Sometimes it is because you just don't work, you clash for whatever reason.
[00:26:21.390] - Gordon
Yeah. So I guess the summary of all of that is that... Oh, dear. The summary is that debt for your business is something you need to look at carefully. You need to make sure that if you owe money, then you try and pay it off as soon as you can, because debt normally comes with extra fees to service that debt, and they have fees and money that you could be putting back into your business rather than paying back to someone else. So pay that off as soon as you can. And if you've got customers that are slow in paying, just jump on it and keep it under control, because the last thing you want to do is to let it go on and on and on until it's months and months and months late and you're phoning them and they're like, "Well, you've waited six months now. You can wait another couple of months. It's not going to be a problem." It's like, "Yeah, but the amount of time I'm putting into this, I need it paid." So yeah, debt is not a good thing for business in most cases. Sometimes it's good for other reasons, but from what we've been talking about today, it's not great. That's everything I wanted to say. Have you got anything to add?
[00:27:36.270] - Taylor
I don't think so.
[00:27:37.280] - Gordon
Well, thank you for joining us. As always, we can be found on YouTube and on Facebook. Please like, share, and subscribe.
[00:27:44.490] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes.
[00:27:49.870] - Gordon
So, until we see you again, which may be next week, it may be the week after, coming to the end of this season. This season seems to have flown by, doesn't it?
[00:27:58.980] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:27:59.420] - Gordon
Thank you for joining us. We'll see you on a Friday, next week or the week after at 1pm. Until then, my name is Gordon, and I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:28:10.730] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:28:13.510] - Gordon
Goodbye.
[00:28:14.150] - Taylor
Bye.
