44: How To Organize Your Business With Trello
In this podcast episode, I chat with Kate Doster. If you have 15 tabs open right now and you never wear socks that match, Kate Doster is the productivity lady for you. You’ll see that Kate's zone of genius isn't organization. In fact, she's a creative copywriter turn course creator who kept missing deadlines, skipping over crucial steps in her launches and lived in a consistent state of digital clutter.
It wasn't until Trello entered her life as a solopreneur that things finally started to come together. Think - never missing emails, actually finishing up paid products and publishing and promoting her podcast Inbox Besties every week even when things got crazy.
You’ll walk away from this episode with productivity tips for your online course creation projects and course launches even if you feel that you’re the most disorganized person you know!
Mentioned In This Episode:
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Course Creator's MBA Podcast. I'm your host Destini Copp. And in this podcast, we're talking about actionable tips to grow your online course business. But before I begin, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by my Course in a Box program, which helps you create your revenue generating course in less than a week . Course in a Box is on the AppSumo marketplace and a special deal. the link for Course in a Box on AppSumo is in our show notes.
New Speaker (00:29):
Today I'm talking with Kate Doster and we're going to be chatting about how to organize your business with Trello, even if you constantly lose everything. Kate is the person, if you have 15 tabs open right now, and you never wear socks that match, she is the productivity lady for you. You will see Kate's zone of genius, isn't organization. In fact, she's a wild child, creative copywriter, course creator, who kept missing deadlines, skipping over crucial steps in her launches and lived in a consistent state of digital clutter. It wasn't until Trello entered her life as a solopreneur, that things finally started to come together. Think about it, never missing emails, actually finishing up paid products and publishing and promoting her podcasts, Inbox Besties every single week even when things got crazy. Kate, I'm so excited to chat with you today. Thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I'm so excited to be here. So normally, like you said in the lovely intro that you had for me, usually I talk about like email marketing and sales, psychology and mindset and all of this. But like Trello has really been like the backbone of my business. Like when a hundred percent it is what I outsourced first. I always say that Trello was my VA for the longest time.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And that was actually one of the first questions I had for you. I know that people, and I knew you when I first met you. I knew you for your email marketing. I bought one of your email marketing courses years ago. And I know you've done a lot of copywriting. How did you actually get into productivity and organization?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So it was out of sheer necessity and will. So I am not the type of person that has like color coded binders and to label maker. Even if like I do get into like one of those spurts, cause most of us naturally like disorganized people will have like, you know, a cool, I'd say like three days where like we're all super like hyper organized, but it's not the way that my brain was wired at all. And so I tried a Asana, tried clickable, tried like everything out there and even like air table. And it wasn't until I found Trello that it just made sense for my brain. And I'm like other people who are super Uber creative, like I am, who are always late for things. Like I said, don't wear socks that match. Like I think they need to know this. And even though this isn't my, my vertical or my niche, I was just talking to my audience about it and like letting them know, like, you know, these are the results that I'm getting, like my traffic was going up, my sales were going up. Like I just felt better. I was getting more opportunity as, and I'm like, I think it's because my backend is managed. Like, do you guys want these Trello boards? And they're like, yes. So that's how it started.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
So I I'll have to admit I'm kind of a closet organized type person. Like I'm the type of person when you go into my closet, everything is like in its own spot and you go into my kitchen, I have all this like organizer stuff in my kitchen. So this kind of stuff really, really geeks me out. Even my computer files, I keep them pretty, pretty organized. But tell me a little bit, because I have tried, I've tried air table. I'm not familiar with ClickUp, but I have I've heard about it, but I've never used it. I've used a Asana. I've used Trello. So tell me what makes Trello different from those other platforms?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Okay. So I think one is that it's a very visual medium. So the way that Trello is set up is you create, they used to call them teams, but they are transitioning into calling them databases. So just you guys know the vernacular may or may not change when we're listening to this episode and essentially you create boards there. So you can have something like LaunchBoard and the simplest way to sort of set your board up would be something like to do doing and done. So as you're doing a task, you can visually like move over the card. So you get that like instant gratification, or you can create a little checklist and again, get that instant gratification that you're doing things. And it really quickly at a glance, you can go ahead and see what still needs to get done. So what's really nice about Trello is, um, cause like I said, we've, we've tried utilizing, like click up and stuff and you've got to go through like 80 different menus and like, everything is just so complicated and I'm not a very linear thinker, but I like the reward of Trello. I like the visual aspect. I like the fact that I can so easily drag a picture, drag a PDF, it lands on a card and now I can't lose it because it's right there.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
So I love that. So, and, and you know, I have, I have Trello and I have used it for certain things. I will, I love Trello. I like the boards that you're talking about. Cause I think I'm a visual person. Also tell me some of the projects that you've put in Trello and how have they helped you accomplish some of your business goals? Like what you meant, you mentioned, you know, increased sales, increased, you know, maybe it's traffic to your website. Tell me a little bit about how that helped you accomplish those goals.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I can talk about this forever. I don't want to say everything, but it was really sort of everything. So the way that I sort of set everything up and the way that I like to think about entrepreneurship, especially when it's just you, or maybe even you in a VA is that you need to think of your business as having on like your CEO hat. Sometimes I call it a sombrero, but your CEO hat and then like your worker bee hat. So the CEO needs to tell the worker bee, which is technical you what to do. And when you're trying to figure out what to do and actually trying to do it at the same time, there's a disconnect in your brain because your brain doesn't work that way. And so that's how you sort of skip steps and things aren't working out or you're missing stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
So basically CEO, Kate, I can come in and I can think to myself in this space, what is every single step that I need to do to say, create a blog post and you can put in any type of content here. I said, it can be podcasts. It can be YouTube videos. It could even be a Facebook live. And so what you will find, and this is how it kept me not only organized, but really motivated is that to write a blog post, that's not one activity on a to-do list where on NSR for me, it was because they didn't break it down into sub tasks, but that's neither here nor there she'd write a blog post. You need to create the idea. You need to write an outline. You need to, maybe you don't want to do that, but you actually need to write the thing.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
You need to get it edited, get it proof, read, make sure that you're linking get your images in there. Make sure that your SEO is on point. Create those share images for it. Is that your feature photos, make sure you've got a freebie in there. Like there are a million steps. So when you were constantly looking at just a plain old to do list and it says, write blog posts and you were looking at it for three days and you're mad because it's still on there. You don't realize that maybe you have done like 20 out of the 25 steps to get it done. But with Trello you can create a card. That's a template. And every time that you want to have a new blog post, you just hit duplicate. And now it's like, Oh, okay. I might not have finished my blog posts in three days, but like I'm almost done.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I only have three more little things to do. And so it keeps you motivated. So that way you will keep going. So the first thing that I had tackled when it came to Trello was the podcast and the blog post. So I literally sat down from like, like I said, every nitty-gritty detail and I made it into, um, every Trello, the way that tasks sort of move around or little cards. So I decided that every episode had its card and then inside those cards, I had a checklist. So I even went so far as to break it down to like, you know, pre-production so that's, you know, creating the idea, outlining the talking point, all that sort of stuff. And then actually like recording it, making sure that like it was getting put to Dropbox that it was edited that the show notes were done.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
And so when you map out all of those steps, it just, it makes you feel way more accomplished in a day. And so that's where I think that it mentally sort of helped. And now I wasn't searching for like the cover art or even like affiliate links because I would make sure on my board for the podcast that I had a card in that sort of top left-hand corner that said assets, and it was a link to all of my affiliate links that I needed. So it just made everything so much faster and easier to find. I always said that Trello, wouldn't forget it. Wouldn't forget things. And then, you know, you can set your due dates. So then it puts it into your Google calendar and it just, it just made it so much more pleasant, so much more pleasant.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I don't know this about Trello. It doesn't automatically load those due dates into your Google mail.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
No. So you need to, I'm trying to think. It's not, they have little like ad-ons, if you call it like almost a little apps for your Trello boards and you can talk about some of the ones that I really enjoy a little bit later on, but essentially what will happen is even without the calendar they're called power ups on you should be able to go into your Trello account and get a for each individual board. It has like its own little, they call it an [inaudible] link. So it can either link to your Google calendar. It can link to your Apple calendar. You can have on the links to outlook again, I'm an Apple person. So I don't know what Microsoft uses for its calendar, but you can have it linked to that. So that way, anytime you set a due date in Trello, it will automatically set a due date on your actual big calendar as well.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
I love that. Now learn something new every day.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yep. So you just need to, you need to do that one tiny little step. So you import it and this is for Google calendar. Cause most of us are Google calendars. Um, if you've ever added a Google calendar to your own, it's like, it just goes like add calendar or you hit the plus button. You put in the little code that travel gives you. And that it'll go ahead and, but Oh, you know, my podcast episode is, you know, do you want Thursday? But I go see what I needed to have done for it or, Oh, it's already set and done. Yay me.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Oh, I definitely need to do that. I didn't even know that existed. Um, and I'm sure that you've used this crew to crew. I know you have online courses, so I'm sure you've used this system to create an online course and even launch it. Tell me a little bit more about that and how you've used it to create your, create your revenue generation.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Excellent. So this is two separate boards, so we'll talk about course creation first. Okay. So I love creating courses utilizing Trello because, and I know that you teach this as well. You sort of have to do that brain dump of things that you're going to include in your course. And then a lot of people will tell you to use like no cards. And like I had no problem with like writing things out, but again, I lose things. I have two young kids. I do not have the sheer table space to have a whole task with all these note cards on it and them to stay there for any long extended period of time. It's not going to happen. What I do have is a Trello board. So every single idea that I have will get its own unique card. You can set up little columns.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
So like we talked about before, how you can have like doing to do done, but you can set up little columns that are sending like, you know, module one, module, two module three. You can even just have that one column and you can rearrange your card. I always have, um, an extra or a nice to have or like supplemental category. So maybe be like, Oh, like, I want to talk about like this in the course of this in the course and this and the course, but you know, course creep is a real thing, right? So I'll sort of shove that card over there. I can add a little sticker to it if I want it to, I can give it a little fun visual label just to draw some attention to it. So I really love it for that brain dumping phase sort of first.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
And that's the way I had my column set up. So then once I actually have like, okay, this is going to be the structure of the course. This is how I'm going to do it. Cause I can't outline in a Google doc. My brain just doesn't work that way. But with Trello cards I can sort of outline where I want to go. Then from there, once I sort of have where the course looks like, and I'm sure this is overkill, but it's the way I like to do it. Um, I'll then go ahead and I'll duplicate the Trello board. So I've got one, that's just sort of like, this is going to be the structure of the course. And then I have what I call my working board. And so then now I can go ahead and I can assign due dates to things like, okay, I decided that in module one, I'm going to have these five lessons, the goal and outcome of these, you know, each lesson is this, each lesson is going to have a worksheet.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So now I can have a checklist on there to make sure and I can give it a due date. Like, okay, I can see at a glance that I need to make sure that the worksheets are getting done for less than two and three, but like everything else has done in recorded. So I will have one that says outline if I'm going to outline it. Usually it's slides, proof, slides. These are all checklist items. Again, I like to go really granular because my brain needs that reward. So it's easy to see, but it's nice to get granular. And then it will be like, you know, you get the slides back record, edit upload, you know, workbook, proof, upload workbook, like all of those that are check things. So every lesson will now have its own little card. Uh, it can have its due date, the checklist items, because this is a big thing.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
If you want individual checklist items like say record lesson and upload lesson to have its own separate due date on the checklist, you're going to have to pay for the bigger version of Trello. But for what I found for most people, as long as they have like lesson one due date is Friday. They'll just go in and be like, Oh, do I still need to do this video? Or do I need to do that? So I don't think that you necessarily need to get that granular though. Some people do like it, but as a solo preneur, it's not like you're assigning tasks to anybody else put yourself. So, so you're usually pretty good with that. And so that's the way that'll go and I'll see all my check boxes and I'll be super excited again. I won't forget to make a worksheet. I'll even go so far as to once a worksheet is created.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Um, depending on what level of trial you have for most people, you can get Trello gold. I think it's trello.com for slash goals. They don't advertise it, but it is like five bucks a month. And I think that it is really powerful for what you need. So I'll go and I'll drag my PDFs on there. Granted, I know that they're in a Google drive somewhere. I host all my stuff on podia. So like, yeah, they're going to be in podia, but I just like having all of it together very easily, very visual. And then for my lunches, I will map out my launch plan. So we have a couple of different launch boards that I've created ones that are sort of a webinar based ones that are challenged based. So then you would do like the same thing, like, okay, like what is started that pre-launch content, okay, I'm going to do this, this and this.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Um, I'll even go with so far as to plan out like my social media, sometimes I'll drag in the image. I'll write like the quote on the quote cards. So again, I can see everything. I can have links to the Google docs that have the emails. I can make sure that even though the emails are written, that they're actually like scheduled and active campaign and things like that. Um, you know, if we're going to do a webinar, there's a lot of parts to a webinar, right? Like you've got a, you know, create the landing page, create the thank you page. Um, if your software doesn't have a calendar button, you've got to create the calendar button. You've got to create that welcome email that gives it to people. You've got to create your slide deck and your content for and make sure your tech is set up. And again, it's all of these things that you could very easily forget or be like, did I actually send people that email? Yeah. I sent that email because I see right down here, I wrote it and it's scheduled sound good.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
And I like what you said earlier about getting granular, not only does that help you, not to miss any important deadlines, but also gives you that sense of accomplishment. When you can go hit that complete button or, you know, basically knock it off and say, you know, this is done. There's something in your brain that just goes off and you feel like, you know that that's done. I don't have to worry about that anymore.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Exactly. You can get granular without being overwhelmed. And that was one of the biggest things that I didn't like about click up is that when you try to get granular with that, it gets too granular. And like you literally can't find anything and you can't see anything at a glance where with Trello, even though you get really granular in your checklist, it's really easy. Even if you create columns up in the top, that's like record video, video recorded, video uploaded, and you physically move that lesson card along. You can go that way. So then when it's done, like it's just like, Oh, okay. So I see better. You have, you know, lesson four and five they're recorded, but then needed to be edited. You know, two and seven they're already said over there. I like the quickness of being able to go big picture, little picture and like two seconds.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
So let me ask you this. So some people out there that might not be as organized as, you know, some of us like myself, they might have it on their new year's resolution or a goal in 2021 to get organized and, you know, take control of that aspect of their life, especially in their business. What advice would you have for them?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I would say one cut yourself. Some Slack because a lot of it is that mindset of, Oh, I'm always a disorganized person. Oh, I can never get this. Oh, nothing sticks. I would say that you are going to, even though I'm a huge advocate for Trello, you're going to need to try on all of those project management systems for little while and see if it works. I wanted to love air table because it's so powerful. It had too many bells and whistles and I got distracted and nothing got done. Trello was simple yet had just enough features that could really truly work for me. So one, I would say test out different things, realize that you are not broken. Like it's not, you it's just like your systems are starting from scratch. So cut yourself. Some Slack is number one. Number two, after you find them on the true, like which again, I'm partial to Trello, then pick one process.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Usually one habitual thing, if you will, in your business to sort of break down. So again, I started with my piece of content. It was my podcast episodes for you. It could be those blog post episodes. It could be a Facebook live serious that you do and then go from there. And then I was like, Oh, okay. So once you have all like the minutia things and now you can't forget. Cause Trello, can't forget. Now, all of a sudden, every time you have a great blog post idea, you've got a system to put it into. So it's like, Oh, now I know all of a sudden what I have coming up down the road. And I'm not just last minute scrambling for something. And some episode it's like, Oh no, this week I needed to make sure that I schedule an episode about open rates because that's what Trello is telling me to do.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
So that's what I'm going to do. So pick one of your processes and go from there. Maybe for you. You're pretty good about getting your content out on time or maybe for your own business. It doesn't matter. Then start on those revenue generating activities. Like you said, start using it to map out your course, to set your duty, to make sure that you're actually scheduling things for your launch. Heck you can even use pictures of your Trello boards to like tease out the course that you have coming. Like, you know, pixelate the board and be like, Oh, something special's coming and it'll be fine. So start with one thing. Usually people go with a content calendar. You can always start with a goals board, but I feel for most people, if you are, I don't want to say a lot of us that are disorganized. Don't like to plan too far in the future. But sometimes because we're so spur of the moment and passionate and we listen to our intuition, trying to plan out the next 90 days is like daunting. And it's just like, but what if this happens? What if this happens? But I feel starting with your content or a paid piece of content, like a course is a great Trello board to start with.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I love all that advice. And let me, let me ask you this. I know you have other, other people that work, work, work with you has having a system like the Trello system helped you work better with your team.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
It did 100%. It does. So like I said, and you know, depending on the different levels of Trello, like again, no tool is perfect. Spoiler alert. Um, we did, as the team got bigger, um, we did have a little bit of issues with sort of those checklist items, getting them actual due dates. But what was really nice about it is that everyone could see what they were responsible for. So we could still tag people and checklist items. People could see what other people had done because Trello will update in real time. So we also, one of the add-ons for Trello that they have is their automation tool called Butler. So like I, on the free plan, I think you have, you can use a couple automations that they have, but on goals you can use pretty much everything they've got. So like I had it when I did hire a team that after I checked off everything having to do with audio for the podcast for inbox, bestie, is it automatically moved it over to the column that said ready for editing.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And it tagged my podcast editor. And I also had it where I would put in my audio file on Dropbox and then I would link the Dropbox to the card. So she has everything that she needs. So then it's like, okay, when her part's done. And it goes to our social media manager to create the graphics. Now, all of a sudden they have a car, that's got all of the contacts that they need. The URLs for things, um, are podcasts that are at one point it was making some graphics, but now the social media person, they get tagged because they got moved over there. The duty it gets changed and it's just, it worked out so well for us that way. So well,
Speaker 1 (22:34):
So that is, that is perfect example of why you need systems like Trello or sauna or whatever you want to use when you ha when you move from that solo preneur type situation that you might be in today to hiring others, whether it's a VA or, or anybody else on your team, like your podcast editor.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Exactly. So, Oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
No, I didn't want to interrupt you there. I know we have a new promotion coming out called back to the business, back to business bundle. You want to tell us a little bit more about that?
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Sure. And ironically, if you guys want to run a free bundle, like we're doing, you all can get a free board for it for Trello. Of course. So the back to business free bundle is basically, I would say it's more for two weeks. I twist the arms of some of the best brightest, smartest, online business owner pals that I have that are also all dedicated to help people with online courses and digital products. And I get them to give me some of their best stuff completely for free for two weeks. So essentially, if you guys are listening to this between 22nd and March 5th, if you head over to back to business, bundle.com, it'll ask you for your email address. Once you get that, then you'll be able to go to our gift claim page and you can get amazing courses, templates I'm giving away 30 newsletter templates completely for free you click the, I want that button.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It brings you to my landing page. You sign up for it. It's not like we are sharing your email address with everyone. Um, the only thing is you only have until March 5th to claim all the prizes that you want. Destini has an amazing one about Facebook ads. I know that it's like it's already a super fan favorite. They love everything, destiny and the back to business bundle. And I guess that is for two weeks. And we have Kristen Miller who gives away one of her smaller products about like starting summits, which is fantastic. We have a gift about mindset. We have one that I think you guys will really like, if you're into Trello, I can voice some Trello boards, but I have another one of my colleagues who she is giving away her like mastering Gmail and Google course. So it's like how to maximize Gmail, how to maximize like your Google drive folder.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Like it's a really, really great course. So I think that you guys will really appreciate that one. We've got stock photos that you can get for free. We have Pinterest templates from Kate, from simple pin media that you guys can get for free. It is quite the event. Like I said, I can only get people to give me their pay stuff for free for like two weeks. Um, and that's what makes that so special, nothing like a one page PDF for like a quiz or like somebody has webinar. No, this is like either it's a paid product or pulled from a signature paid product
Speaker 1 (25:24):
And we will make sure all of those links are in the show notes. So the back to the business bundle link will be in the show notes. And also Kate, I will link to your Trello magic course. So if anybody's interested in that they can grab that. And where else can people find you? Kate?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Excellent. So I, I love Trello magic. She is such a great one. So that one is if you're like, Oh my goodness, I can't even bear the thought of like breaking down everything that goes into a podcast or YouTube channel or a launch. I do it all for you on Trello magic. So all you need to do is just hit, copy the board and you're off to the races. So the best place is wherever you're listening to this right now, search for in box besties. That's my podcast where we talk everything about email marketing, sales, psychology mindset. We have amazing guests on who didn't, you know, talking about social media and stuff. We'll we'll and guys, we'll see when you get over there, I am just starting to hang out more on Instagram, so you can look for me, Kate underscore Doster. And, uh, if it's after the back to business bundle, we'll make sure to put a link in the show notes as well. I have two years worth of email ideas. Cause like I said, that's usually my main thing, but I feel like more people that are creative need to know about Trello and have it set up for our brains. So, we'll go ahead and we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. So now you won't have to worry about what am I doing today or what to send your email list
Speaker 1 (26:44):
And we will make sure all those links are there. Great. Thank you so much for joining us. Do you want to have one last minute thing you want to say to the listeners don't get so old
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Overwhelmed. And so over-complicating your systems that you never end up using them. That is the biggest problem is people will procrast a plan. And I need you guys to take five minutes to plan, but I need you to do 10 minutes of execution. Like Trello is only going to work. If you do the work around it, it doesn't matter if you've got the Trello boards from Trello magic. Or if you decide to set them up yourself in an afternoon, if you are not using them and they are not set up in a way that is conducive to the way you work, it's not going to happen. So know yourself and take action.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Thank you for that. Course creators, thank you so much for joining us today. If you have any questions about Course in a Box, which is offered on AppSumo, please reach out to me or DM me on Instagram. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Kate would love for you to rate and review the podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.