[00:00:09.02] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:09.12] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:09.22] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:11.16] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:13.14] - 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 in the last seven days. And there's been lots happening this week, hasn't there?
[00:00:25.22] - Taylor
Has there?
[00:00:26.13] - Gordon
There always is, actually. But you've been spending a lot of time at your new workplace.
[00:00:31.29] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:00:32.23] - Gordon
So I haven't seen much of you. How's that going?
[00:00:35.03] - Taylor
It's been good. It's been really nice to have a separation. I don't know if I'm getting more... It feels like I'm getting more done. I don't know if that's a placebo effect and stuff, but it feels like I'm getting more done. I'm spending more money because I'm having to get food, which I may see if I can fix and try and take some food with me, maybe. But yeah, I have to buy my own lunch and stuff rather than just stealing from the cupboard.
[00:01:04.11] - Gordon
And weirdly, our food bill has gone down. So it's a win-win for everyone as far as I can see. Good. Right, we'll come back to you with that matter a little bit later, not today, but in the future. And then we can see - you need to work out how you're going to measure if it's been successful or not.
[00:01:22.14] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:01:23.16] - Gordon
So would you like to go first today or shall I?
[00:01:26.07] - Taylor
I'll go first.
[00:01:27.05] - Gordon
Okay, off you go.
[00:01:28.13] - Taylor
So something that I've been doing recently is having a daily stand-up. Now, this is very typical and common in corporate companies. They have what's called a daily stand-up where you basically go around the, normally now Zoom meetings, and you say what you've done the previous day and what you're planning on working on today. And I thought it was a good idea, but obviously it's very difficult to do it by yourself to have the motivation and also just echoing into an empty room isn't the most fun. So I've been doing it with one of my friends and it's been really helpful. What we do is we basically we have a call at about 9am-ish and we both tell each other what we're planning on doing for the day, what we've got to focus on. And then in our Facebook Messenger, we will write what we basically said in the list. And then throughout the day, we will update the list and add little check emojis. And it's just a way for us to be able to see how the other one is getting on. It's a bit of accountability as well. It's also quite nice because if you have ticked off a couple in quick succession, it's cool because the other person goes, "Oh, awesome job!" And it motivates you and makes you feel good. So, yeah, it's something we've been doing recently. And because we're both in the UK, it obviously works well. But something that I don't know if you've ever done, but it's been really good.
[00:03:00.09] - Gordon
Yeah, I mean, I've done accountability with other people, but I've not done a stand-up like that where you lay out to someone else what you're going to do for the day. And are you checking in on the other person to see how they're getting on to motivate them? Or are you just getting on with your own things and updating your list?
[00:03:20.20] - Taylor
Yeah, we mainly just get on with our own stuff. I mean, we talk pretty much the entire day anyway, just about different things, asking each other questions about stuff we get stuck on and things. But you just update your list and just put it into the chat, and obviously the other person then sees it and then will reply or whatever.
[00:03:39.10] - Gordon
And I guess because you know someone else is looking at that list and it's not just your own private to-do list, you want to prove to the other person that you're doing what you said you were going to do.
[00:03:50.19] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:03:50.14] - Gordon
Yeah.
[00:03:50.14] - Taylor
And it just adds a bit of focus as well. It's very easy to switch between a million different things when emails come in and things like that. Whereas if you set out what your plans are for the day, you stick to them, really, and you at least get those done. Sometimes we're a little ambitious with what we want to get done. Other times, we don't have as much on there, but it still manages to take the whole day to get that list completed. And I'm really enjoying it.
[00:04:19.22] - Gordon
Very good. Okay. So you recommend that anyone who's working on their own or has an office where there's only themselves, really, in their own group, do this with someone else?
[00:04:32.21] - Taylor
Yeah, find either another person or a small group of you. I wouldn't do it more than maybe three or four, but just have someone that you can be accountable with. You need to make sure that you're on the same page and you're both driven. Otherwise, it just doesn't really work because neither of you are going to hold yourself accountable or each other accountable, should I say. But if it's done well, it can be really effective.
[00:05:02.21] - Gordon
Very good. Anything else you want to say on that? Where did this idea come from?
[00:05:06.21] - Taylor
I know that people in corporate and people, friends I have that work in offices and for bigger companies, they have this and they always moan about it and go, "Oh, I've got to have stand-up." And that's usually because it's a big-ish group of people that go around the room. And so you say your bit and then you sit there for the the rest of the hour doing nothing. Whereas when I'm talking to my friend, it's just me and him, we're having a conversation. We chat about things that we found, what we're doing, just in general, not work-related, just what we've been up to. But then once we're done, we're done. We just end the call and we get on with our day. I think that's the difference is because we're self-employed, because we work for ourselves, and because we have control over our time and how long we spend, it's a lot more effective.
[00:05:59.01] - Gordon
Something that a friend of the podcast, Marc Summers, did with his team is instead of doing a stand-up like that, he would do the opposite. So at the end of the day, all of the staff would put into Slack, which was their preferred method of communication, everything that they've done that day or everything they've achieved. And it's not just work-wise, it's emotional-wise or friendship-wise as well. And I think that is similar to what you do in the fact that it makes you want to do what you think you need to do so that at the end of the day, you've got something to put on that list and not just say, "Well, I didn't actually achieve a great deal today." So that, I think, is a very interesting... Plus, as an employee, sorry, as an employer, it's really good to know what your employees are doing if you're not around or if you're busy with your own projects. I think that's really good. Anything else you want to say on that?
[00:07:03.23] - Taylor
Don't think so.
[00:07:05.08] - Gordon
So, I want to talk about grasping new opportunities today. We've touched on this in the past, but I've got an opportunity that's happening this weekend. I was asked if I would come along to a drama school and take photos during their performances and then offer the photos to the parents for them to be able to purchase prints. Now, I've done this before okay. So first thing is I've not done everything as I've just described before, but I've done pretty much all the elements. I've been to shows and I've taken photos. I know how to do that. Stage shows are quite tricky to take photos at sometimes because the lighting changes. So I've done that before, that's not a problem. I've done prints before and I've sold prints before. But what I haven't done is done everything altogether. So I looked at this opportunity that came my way and thought, "Is this something that I have the skills to do? And is it something that is going to be done in a professional way? Or am I going to be learning on the job?" And the answer to that is I have done everything professionally, so learning on the job is not an option here because I know what I'm doing. And that is the only reason on this occasion that I said yes to it, because I know I can do a good job. Having said that, it's a long weekend. I'm doing 8:30 till 7:00 on the Saturday tomorrow, and then 9:00 till 5:00 on the Sunday. So they're long, long days. And I could come away with several thousand photos, and I've then got to edit them. And once they're edited, I then have to put them up onto a purchasing system and allow the parents to come along and make purchases. And once they've made their purchases, I've then got to get all the photos printed and then I've got to deliver them. So it's quite a big process. And this is me testing this sort of system because I don't have a system that I've used before for this type of ordering process. I'm using software that I know very well and creating a system that I believe will work well for what I need. But if I get asked to do something like this again or I go out looking for this sort of job again, then I'm going to spend a bit more time on the back end of it, as it were, to make my workflow easier and quicker. Because as we all know, time is money. And if I can make a process easier or quicker, I'll end up earning more money. Because this is going to take a long time. And I don't know what sort of revenue I'm going to get from this. It's an unknown quantity to me at the moment because I haven't done this group before. So that is my weekend coming. I don't know how it's going to go. I may or may not report on it next week, depending on how it goes. Either way, I will be learning lessons from it, and I'll either decide that it's way too much work for very little revenue, or I'll decide that it's an untapped market with all the skills that I already have that I can easily do and therefore add it to my list of services that I can perform. And then I believe there's other groups or franchises within this drama group that I can approach and offer my services to. They may or may not already have a suitable supplier for this. I don't want to tread on toes, but this lady didn't have anyone, so that's why she came to me. And we'll see how it goes. There may be a lot of opportunities to do similar types of things like this, and that will then push me to get a more robust system in place for the ordering process. I don't know. Any thoughts?
[00:11:30.03] - Taylor
I think it's an interesting idea and concept. I think they had people that would come in and do school photos at my school and things like that. I never did any of the purchasing, so I don't know that side of it, of what the system was like, how easy it was to use and purchase and things like that. So I can't comment from that point. But yeah, it seems interesting. It seemed, I think, you have to have your processes down, otherwise it becomes costly in terms of using up a lot of time.
[00:12:10.17] - Gordon
I agree. But I think for dipping your toe in the water and seeing if it's something that, a) I want to do, because I might come away from it going, "Oh, gosh, I don't want to do that again. That was way too difficult, too much work," whatever the situation may be, too tiring. So by dipping my toe in the water and giving me an insight into what processes I need, I think that will give me a better understanding as to whether it's something I want to do in the future. And if I do want to do it in the future, I'll have the knowledge and experience of this time, that I'm doing it now, to be able to create better processes to make things easier in the future.
[00:12:51.12] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:12:52.12] - Gordon
We will see. Anyway, I think it's good. The reason for me talking about this is to look at opportunities that come your way. And even if it's not something you've done before, do you have the skills to perform that service or that function in a way that is professional? Because I think learning on the job is a really bad idea. I think you shouldn't be learning on the job for a professional job. You need to have the skills in place. You need to have the knowledge in place to go out and ask for a professional fee. Learning on the job is fine if you're doing something for a friend, or for a charity, or for a job you're not being paid for, because you can say up front, "Look, I've not done this before. I'm going to be learning. It's going to take a while. I don't know what the final outcome is going to be." But if you're going to get paid a professional fee, you need to make sure you give a professional job, no matter what. So I think that's what has led me to say yes to this. And we will see what challenges it brings and whether I'm possibly going to be doing this again in the future.
[00:14:03.05] - Taylor
Sounds good.
[00:14:03.17] - Gordon
I'm sure I'll let you know. Anything else you want to say on anything?
[00:14:07.09] - Taylor
Not for me.
[00:14:08.11] - Gordon
Well, thank you so much for joining us. As always, we can be found on YouTube and potentially Facebook, although we've had a few issues with that over the last couple of weeks, where the feed hasn't gone through onto it properly. So hopefully it's gone through okay today. If not, we need to look into why that is. But you can like, share, and subscribe.
[00:14:29.03] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes.
[00:14:33.27] - Gordon
And of course, we're on all your favourite podcast platforms, so you can listen to us in the car on your journeys, wherever you may be, so you don't miss out on anything that we might say. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you again next week, 1pm on Friday. Until then, my name is Gordon, and I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:14:54.12] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:14:56.27] - Gordon
Goodbye.
[00:14:57.12] - Taylor
Bye.
