Nicole Smith
Welcome to Take Control with Nicole. As business owners, we experience firsthand the fine line between our personal and business lives. During our conversations, we will look at simple hints and tips to create time, reduce overwhelm, and help you to navigate through your journey to where you want to be. If you’re looking for smarter ways to work, and create space and time freedom in your day, then you’re in the right place. All right, let’s go.

Nicole Smith
Hello, Hello, and thank you for coming back and joining us for this next fabulous episode of take control with Nicole. Today I’m speaking with the fabulous Evan Englezos, all about digital system transformation. Evan started his business Digital Team Coach to provide high value and sustainable digital solutions, strategies and training that cover all aspects of organisations digital needs for the new era of hybrid working. Both Evan and I are passionate about digital systems that support incredible workflows, efficiencies, engagement. When Evan is not immersed in the digital systems world, he loves spending time with his beautiful family playing music and producing Community Music Nights ohh hello, Evan, thanks so much for coming and joining me.

Evan Englezos
Nicole, thank you so much. It’s great to see you and speak with you again today.

Nicole Smith
Exactly. Oh, it’s so good. It feels like such a long time since we’ve had a conversation. So I’m so happy to have you here today and talk about our fabulous passion of digital tech and all the fun things that go with it.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, they’re just people in life who think the same way. And you don’t come across too many. But I remember once we sort of discover that we had the music in common, and then this zest for just productivity and getting the technology that’s going to support, you know, what we’re on about and what we do. And yeah, you just embody that. And it’s like, yes, I’m drawn to that. And I love the way that we sort of work alongside each other in different spheres.

Nicole Smith
It’s, it’s fabulous, isn’t it? Because we’ve both got these beautiful skills that really complement each other. And I yeah, it’s been a joy being in your world for the past couple of years. Thank you, COVID and Waterman for connecting us and the musical theatre world as well. So yeah, fun.

Evan Englezos
Yeah. And yeah, just being able to draw, you know, the good things that have come out of such a really tricky time. Definitely, these relationships that you can build over zoom and of course, it’s not exactly the same as in person. But you know, we’re just getting along so well, before we even met in person that, you know, you can form and establish, and continue really good relationships with people through this incredible technology that, you know, 5, 10 years ago, if we went through pandemic, this would have been fairly exclusive for most people.

Nicole Smith
I still remember the day we met Watermans, at Chaddy there. And I remember you said, you’re exactly how I imagined you would be. And I’m like fabulous. Thank you. That’s good. That’s what I hope to be

Evan Englezos
Totally. Yeah.

Nicole Smith
So good. So, why digital transformation? What led you down this path to start your fabulous business?

Evan Englezos
Yeah, that’s a great question. What led me down the path was with my background in web development, working in different organisations, and companies over the last, you know, 10, 15, 20 years, I’ve been like a team leader, I’ve been an employee, and experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly of just working in a team in the first place. And there are different reasons why things go well, different reasons why things don’t go so well. It’s the dynamics of the people in the room and their skills and abilities and personality it’s all these different things. And so, as a developer, I’m thinking, Well, you know, a website is just one aspect of an organization’s needs, especially in the last few years, where it’s like, okay, we need to collaborate online, and we need to market online and we need to do every, like, everything is now you know, in that sphere. And so I realised, well, you know, it’s good to have a niche, but web development is only one small aspect of really the bigger picture of the requirements of an organisation today. So that’s where about four years ago, Digital Team Coach came into being it’s like, okay, we need to have a strategy that will help organisations to be able to move forward in that way, and well the reasons why I mean, it seems a bit more obvious now in 2022, than it did a few years ago. But the systems that we have in place need to support the work that we do, and not the other way around. If you’re a slave to the technology, then that’s not going to be helpful at all. But if you ignore it altogether, as well, then you’re going to be missing opportunities to reach with people, because this is where people are these days in Australia, people are on their devices, not for work, but just for everything else, three, three and a half hours a day on average. And so being visible, being available, being just positioning yourself and being present, is going to bring people and bring opportunities up that you wouldn’t if you sort of just kept things in a, you’re just in the shop front. Yeah. And so I think with that we need to be genuine in the way that we work with people and reach people and engage with people. I came across this really great, great quote, recently, and I shared it in a programme that I’ve been running for churches and their digital presence and things like that. And I shared it with them yesterday, and I’ll just adapt this quote just a little bit to talk more than in the business perspective, because I work with churches, not for profit small businesses, but you know, the same principle applies, and this quote from The Unstuck Group, in America, and I’ll just adopt a tiny bit. Digital strategies are going to become embedded parts of your business strategy, it won’t be something separate, it won’t be something different. They will be elemental, essential components of how you do what you do to help people and to help them to take their next steps. So that new clear perspective you have on how your business does, what it does, will include in person engagement and environments, and online gatherings and environments, with both in person, and digital as being next steps in the work that you do. So they’re all going to be completely woven together in one comprehensive way for your business. And you’ll revisit it and change it and try new things. And keep reiterating with the things you learn. Because it won’t be your digital business strategy, it will just be your business strategy. Does that make sense? It’s like so nice. Like, even for me, that’s really challenging.

Nicole Smith
Music to my ears, it’s just like uhhh.

Evan Englezos
It’s really challenging, because it’s like, you know, we’ve been taught there’s, there’s a pendulum, we’ve been, you know, 5, 10 years ago, it was, you know, about the in person, you know, and digital was slowly coming into being. And the pendulum thanks to COVID, lockdown’s, has swung almost completely to digital for many, many industries. But now there’s this swing back of the pendulum. And it’s not going to go back to fully in person, there’s going to be this thing of hybrid. But the challenge for me is, as much as we talk about digital and hybrid, this is just going to become as part of the new normal. And so we can almost drop off this word of hybrid and digital in that this is going to be so normal, that it’s just going to be part of your strategy.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that, quote, that’s amazing, because it just really brings home, you know, the purpose of why I started my business as well, you know, being able to create solutions in your businesses that create the connect the tech and the teams together, and being able to identify what’s actually going to work for your unique business. And it’s just going to be the norm. Exactly. It’s not that it’s anything, you know, over there bright and shiny and new. It’s well, this is our business, and this is how we operate. You know, my business is fully digital. Yes, I can and I have met with clients in person, but you know, I do it all online because that’s the choice and the design that I want to, you know, create for my business. So yeah, bringing it mainstream, bringing it just the way instead of over there somewhere.

Evan Englezos
Yep, exactly.

Nicole Smith
So good. What do you think if businesses are kind of in a moment, I guess we’ve kind of been forced a little bit forced on hand over the last couple of years. But what if they don’t transform what if they haven’t arrived at the party yet and still kind of on that, as you said that pendulum over in the in fully in person in office, like how does that impact the potential of you know, building their business to the beat, whatever that might be?

Evan Englezos
Yeah, it’s, there’s so many missed opportunities to in whatever their end goal is there going to be missing opportunities because the majority of people are attracted in the online, at least in often as a first step, like if you’re trying to research something, get a recommendation, find out something, you know, you might have a conversation with the person next to you. But more often than not, we’re going to search it up on Google, on Facebook, find a group, put a recommendation post out there. And then, like in this business groups, when you’re, when you ask for recommendation, you get 20, 40, 50, different, you know, oh go to this person, they’re, you know, they’re the best at this thing that we do. They’re the best mortgage broker, they’re the best accountant, whatever it is. And so if you don’t have a place that people can connect with you online, you’re definitely going to be missing out. And then that brings irrelevance, that’s going to hit your bottom line. And you’re going to be left in the relics of history, I think.

Nicole Smith
it is, it’s, um, you know, that almost, yeah, the visibility on being there. It’s not saying you need to necessarily be a slave to Facebook, or Instagram, you know, respond instantly. That’s not what we’re saying here, the digital transformation, it’s being having that ability to be part of the conversation, the bigger conversation. And in these Facebook groups, in particular, like I’ve seen it, there’s, you know, who’s seen a social media, and I’m looking for a social media manager, blah, blah, all the things come through. And they’re actually amazing to go into those big communities, when you find the right one that’s suited for your business industry. And actually going on the search button, this little search, whatever the search, let’s call search, because that’s basically what it is, and searching for what you’re after, as well, the historical information there that you can find. And that’s the other thing as well, the internet is just like a treasure trove of you can get lost in there. But it’s if you’re in there, and you’ve got that evidence that you are that person or you’ve got that, you know, people recommending you all the time. You know, you don’t want to miss out on that opportunity.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, definitely. And, and things are just moving so quickly. Now, you don’t have to be at the forefront of all that. But you need to have an awareness and prioritise where you’re going to invest your time. When businesses don’t adapt. They, they’re going to die. It’s like Encyclopaedia Britannica. It’s like Kodak. You know, we weren’t, you know, who was ever going to give us an encyclopaedia online. And now, you know, they’re just an old thing on the shelf that that you’ll find on Gumtree for $20 or something like that. Yeah, if you don’t, if you don’t adapt to the times, and where the people are, it’s like that our little mermaid song, I want to be where the people are. You know, if you don’t, if you’re not gonna be there, you’re gonna miss out.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, you’re just not part of the conversation. Yep. You know, and even with your internal things. So that’s obviously the external connections. With your internal operational systems and processes and workflows, which you know, we love, we geek out on all the time. Being stuck in because I have paid that upfront, 10 years ago, and that’s the suit solution we are always going to use. That’s sort of like very outdated, you can become very outdated very quickly with tech, can’t you? Like tech just yesterday is, you know, your front is so far forward so quickly with all the tech stuff. I know that I’ve had recently actually a few conversations with people who work in the corporate space. And they say, yeah, they’ve got all these solutions in place, but we’re not using them. We don’t really like them. They’re not user friendly. They’re not, you know, they don’t really enhance our experience. It’s it’s a bit clunky. And smaller businesses, especially we have that opportunity to really get to the forefront of what is evolving in technology, and what’s going to support our team and our businesses to really find that harmonious way of working. So you don’t need to stay with the solution because we pay for it upfront if it’s not going to suit you anymore.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, that’s really good. I had a conversation with a few people yesterday, just around that idea of okay. You know, what you’ve got having a strategy but also having that flexibility. And the strategy that we’re talking and I alluded to it before. It is a dynamic thing. You can’t just write it up once and go okay, this is what we’re going to do, and then leave it on the shelf and that’s it. That will not be relevant, it’s not going to be visible for you, and you’re not going to pursue and work towards that. And then you’re not going to be able to adapt it. So I think there has to be this balance that we have between having a plan, having a strategy, and something to aim for. But today, we also need to have that flexibility, that spirit to experiment and try new things to adapt. So if something we’ve gotten the plan is working, great, let’s keep moving that forward and pushing into that. If it’s not working, how do we be able to pivot more easily with that? And you’re right, like, the smaller your outfit is, the easier it is to be able to try those new things and do that. But for organisations, if they don’t have at least some sense of innovation, it’s going to fall over, you know, in the long run.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, it’ll become very cumbersome as well. Because you know, the older the tech gets if the particular programme that you’ve invested in, doesn’t also have that innovative forward thinking thought pattern, you’re just, there’s so many umaid, oh okay, so this is a whole conversation, there are so many to choose from Evan, like, you know, I know, my clients come to me, and they’re like, what CRM should I use? What project management tool should I use? What booking system should I use? And I’m like, fabulous, what’s your key? What’s the most important things that you’re trying to achieve out of these things? Because the list is endless. I’ve had spreadsheets of people. They’ve done the research, but they can’t pick one. Yeah, well, look, look what’s happened. You’re over complicating your, your brains full now. We can’t see through it all. Yeah. Like, talk to me about that. How do you work through that?

Evan Englezos
So having a process in place to

Nicole Smith
To select a solution for like your clients when you’re working with them? Yeah. Or giving them some advice and guidance on what’s best suited for them because there’s so many.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, exactly. There are, there’s so much out there, they’re adapting new players come onto the field. And some of them are really good, and others aren’t going to last very long as well. So you know, are you going for the new shiny thing, or the or the thing that is, you know, it has runs on the board and has been around and is popular? So like, yeah, working through that process. For me, I’ve got a process of developing that strategy and at first, it comes down to firstly, when you analyse it, well, what’s the core thing that you’re wanting to do in your organisation or your business? How does that affect the people internally and externally, what process have recurrently got in place, and what systems do you currently have in place? Because some of them, we’re not gonna throw everything out. Some of them, you know, can be really good, it might mean that you need some tweaking with the the structure of it, or the settings in it, there might be training that’s involved for the staff, there might be just putting some better processes in place so people do, use it consistently. And they’re just more on the same page together. Or it might be that, you know, you need to bring in one new system, or it could be a complete overhaul. So there’s that analysis part, and then coming up with a strategy, particularly when you do have, you know, hundreds of different options of systems that you could use. Like, I’m not going to filter my way through 100 of them. I select, you know, based on on researching, speaking to different people, for industry tools, some tools are industry specific, others are more generic that you can structure for the purposes, and they’re more modular and customizable. And both have a place. And if you can find one or two tools that are really going to hit the core requirements that you have, and, you know, also looking at them, how they integrate with each other. You might need a third party integration

Nicole Smith
Yeah, you’re brain went eaxctly, see this is what it says is what I mean, like, I know what you’re thinking,

Evan Englezos
But like, I think that also just says there’s not necessarily one way that you have to do it, because there’s so many different things, tools you can use, different combinations. Some are going to be much better than others, and some are going to cost a whole lot more than others. And so apart from just having the core requirements of okay, these are these are the system requirements that I need. Also thinking then I call it just your business criteria in and ranking well, what’s more important to you is that the price point, is that the level of support that they offer, is that it’s popularity, is that where they’re based sometimes like you want to find somewhere that’s local, because you know you’ll get better support here in Australia than trying to deal with people in the US, or somewhere else. I’ve got a list of 12 or 15 different criteria. And I think if you can prioritise those and rank them, then that gives just more focus and weight then when you are going through that selection process.

Nicole Smith
And that is a selection process criteria there, how beautifully does that flow back into the quote, you’re talking about how it brings right into your business strategy? Because a lot of those things, you know, business growth, where are we headed in the next five to ten years? You know, are we exponentially going to expand our team, and therefore our budget is going to be different? Yeah, because you know, the budget today with me and old mate next to me, two people versus 20, is going to look very different. So how does the scalability work as well? You mentioned training, and that and processes and consistency. That is something that I always talk about being able to have a beautiful onboarding process for your team, especially existing staff when you’ve got new tech coming in, but also for new team members, so that you’ve given them some, not only one to one training, but some resource documents, so they can go back through. I know, you know, I love to refer back to the step by step guides when I’m doing things, especially if I haven’t done it for a while just to refresh my memory, or there’s videos or whatever it might be. That’s obviously a big element to what you do with your clients as well and your communities?

Evan Englezos
Yeah, absolutely. Too often. And there’s normally not bad intentions, sometimes people just selfish and siloed, in the different departments in an organisation more often than not, it’s just that there hasn’t been a culture of sharing information, a culture of getting things out of somebody’s head, and that sort of one person owns that part of the knowledge and someone else owns that part of the knowledge. And that might be okay at the time, but it doesn’t lend itself to be able to grow and bring new people in. So a lot of what I need to encourage people to do, of course, there’s the obvious training, but is to be able to get stuff out of their head, put it in a structured way into a knowledge hub, knowledge repository, whatever it’s called, that can be shared for everyone who’s already there, and then be able to onboard new people as they come in. When I was speaking with my group yesterday, we were, like, they all like when we were all sharing sort of what they’re looking forward for in this next year, they were all talking about laying foundations to bring new people on. And so for all of them, it’s like, okay, I have to, you know, spend time and it can feel like a very dry process of, you know, having to write things, documents, policies, blah, blah, blah, it’s, you know, not very sexy at all, but they’re laying the groundwork for the future.

Nicole Smith
Makes me smile and dance and be happy when I’m running process.

Evan Englezos
Well, yeah, but you and me, we’re a different breed, you know. But for the majority of business owners, they’re not going to think that way. And so, yeah, to get stuff out of their heads, and to be able to share it in an easy way, having just that culture of transparency, that culture of sharing. Because even though that’s going to take time, that’s going to sow a lot of seeds in the long run,

Nicole Smith
And how fabulous when you do transfer that personal IP to business IP, you’ve got no space in your brain, you don’t have to hold that information there anymore. Like that’s now okay, that’s over there. That’s documented. I know that that’s there now, I can have time to look or invest time to look at this new thing over here. It’s such you know, there’s so many positives to doing that process. And it’s not about getting it right the first time. You know, just video, put loom on or whatever you’re recording, even zoom screenshare, do a recording, save it. You’ve done it, at least you’ve got a record of it there and then you can start to bring that out a little bit more into different formats. Transcribe it in Otter. Yeah, yeah, one of those there, there you go again, and just talk through it. That’s what I recommend people do. Just start it. Take that next step. Pick one, one process thing you’re doing today. Press record. You started.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, exactly. You don’t have to, it can, it’s very daunting and overwhelming to think, okay, how am I going to get all this out at one hit. And you’re right, just the best place to start is whatever you’re working on right now. Just dump it, dump it down somewhere, it doesn’t have to be perfect. You can clean it up later, or get someone else to clean it up later. Yeah, but it does. Even when you’re releasing it as business IP, it doesn’t mean that other people are going to take over your job and take over all these tasks, they don’t want to do your job, they want to do their job. But then by having it all there, you have people on the same page, and then it goes back to the vision of the organisation. If people are in it, for the same reason, then you’re going to get better outcomes, you’re going to work better together. And you’re not going to be treading on each other’s toes. It’s, but it also means that my friend calls it the bus test, if someone gets hit by the bus, that knowledge and you know, what needs to happen doesn’t get lost either.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, well, that’s it and it’s not just you know, in the world, the COVID world we’re in right now, you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow, right, so well in any world really, you don’t know. So being able to have that information out there, as a business owner, like to know that your staff and you have documented those those systems and processes in place. It’s just that extra little bit of okay so if something happens, I can bring someone in, and they’ve got some step by steps to actually just start to get things even, even if it’s slower, things are gonna keep moving, moving forward. So yeah, I was gonna ask you something. And now it’s totally gone from my mind.

Evan Englezos
You should’ve written it down!

Nicole Smith
Hello there, I’m just interrupting this episode, as I would love to invite you to come on in and join us inside the Members Lounge, my community have shared with me that they joined initially, because they really wanted to discover the power of ClickUp. They wanted to be able to design, build, and connect their ClickUps within their own individual businesses. However, once they were inside, they really discovered how the power of looking at the foundations of your operational areas of your business, and designing those really to set you up for success is such a powerful element. And guess what else, we have a fabulous community inside. So once you’re in, you’re never gonna want to leave. So come on over, have a look. Go to my website, theartisans.com. au and pop up to the members lounge button at the top. And we look forward to supporting you as you discover how fabulous it is when you’re confidently striding down easy street. See you inside the lounge.

Nicole Smith
Oh, I know, I was talking to my husband, Simon yesterday, and I actually just written a post about emails in the workplace. And in particular, I guess the communicate, like an avenue of digital transformation is your communication strategy. Not only external, but internal. And I know I’ve experienced personally when working in the big corporate world, even SME space that the number of emails that come in and out an inter team is astronomical. You look at it and you’re like, why did you need to send me that email? Like that’s not needed in my, it’s making noise in my inbox. Is that something you work with your clients on to find different ways of communicating that’s not on email?

Evan Englezos
Yeah, totally. It’s, uh emails are the bane of my existence. You know, it’s necessary still I get it. But particularly for project based work, email is not the place that you send files to each other and updates and then you have to cc people and bring new people in and forward things. It’s just so clunky, it’s inefficient, it’s hard to find things. And then you have your your document final final version seven, final updated by Nicole dot docx dot pdf dot docx. You know, like this. Ah, it hurts me a lot.

Nicole Smith
Any conventionsis another completely other topic. But yeah, keep going.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, let’s not worry about that one today. But you know that, the technology that we have now is, you know, it’s come such a long way in the last 10, 15 years that how used to have an office document and then work it around the team and all that sort of stuff. I think, it’s not necessary anymore. So to communicate, you know, within a internal comms tool, like teams or slack to have your documents shared and collaborative, collaboratively, work on them together. We just we don’t need emails anymore. When it’s project based work, you should be communicating within the the different tasks that are there in the project. And I know that’s a massive brain shift for people who haven’t done that before. I understand that for some people, it’s just harder to learn that stuff. But when I’ve gone through the process of rolling that out with clients, and training people, particularly those who are just slower to in the take up of new technology, new processes, within a few weeks, within a couple of months, they’re like, wow, this is better than I expected. It’s like,

Nicole Smith
Why didn’t I do it sooner?

Evan Englezos
But it takes time. And I know, we’re going to talk about the ingredients, but like, yeah, it’s that just willingness to try something new that adaptability. And, you know, but the challenge is still going to be on the business owner, whoever is leading. How do you bring your people with you well? How do you do that change management well?

Nicole Smith
Yeah, change management is a big part of all of this, isn’t it? Yeah. You know, being able to really bring your team along on the journey so that they feel a part of it as well. Because any tech, new tech can seem daunting, especially if you’ve been in a business for 10 plus years. And it’s always been done this way. Yeah. Why do we need to change? It works? It gets the job done. Yeah,

Evan Englezos
It does. But again, that goes back to the missed opportunities. I’ve got a little tool on my website called the task smashing calculator. And you basically, if you put in the number of minutes or hours, that you waste a day on things like searching for documents, following things up, trying to find different things or get information from people where if it was all in one place, and everyone knew where it was, and could find it. If you calculate that amount of time by that number of people, by the number of weeks in the year and you put $1 figure on that time that is spent on those things that you don’t need to do any more, those unnecessary tasks, I guarantee you, you’d be saving 1000s of hours and 10s of 1000s of dollars every year, even for a team of probably 10 people. And that just goes crazy. The more people you add into there,

Nicole Smith
It’s data, right? All of this is data. Yes, the data doesn’t lie. We we’ve spoken about that before. And we’re gonna pop that link, I think in the show notes, because it is a fabulous tool. I’ll grab that off the website and pop it in there. Um, so yeah, I was having a conversation with someone the other day, and they have Monday in their, it’s a big business, they’ve got Monday installed, but they’re not utilising it. Yep. You know, and, and the conversation went like, oh, well, when we get to this stage, then we will start to and I said, oh, no. It’s a friend of mine, like not a you know, anyways, a friend of mine and I’m like do it now, do it now. Because now there’s no urgency, you’ve got the tool there. Some people are sort of using it, but not really properly. Do it now. Because then when you get busier, you’ve got more people on your team, you’ve already got those habits developed on how to use the system. So it’s going to just be beautifully and efficient when you get to that stage. And I know that you know, there can be not, resistance, but it’s like, ah, that’s not important right now. I’ve got other things to focus on. So I’ll deal with that when I’m super busy. Having that, you know, thought pattern of if I just spend a little moment of time on some of these things, starting documenting your processes, having a look at your workflows in your project management system, do you actually know how to use your project management system, so if not have some training top someone like me or you that has experience in the systems that give you that headstart, you know, actually move things through? You know, it is it’s change all of it has change management and guiding people and supporting people to know that it’s okay to take that step forward to, you know, actually utilising and enjoying the systems because that’s a key when choosing, isn’t it? I know that if I don’t love something, I’m not going to be in it.

Evan Englezos
Yeah. And look, there’s, for most organisations, there’s not a perfect time. It’s going to be painful. Like I admit that, change is hard, harder for some people than others. And, you know, you touched on the, you know, what’s important, like, I think a lot of people would acknowledge, okay, yeah, I know, and we need to do this. Yeah, it’s important, but you know, it always ends up well, most of the time it ends up on the lower priority of things. But again, the cost that that has, by not doing it now is going to make it much harder to change later, it’s going to be more expensive, more costly for your team. So yeah, unless it’s an extremely important reason, now’s a better time than ever. Yeah,

Nicole Smith
Yep. Make those small micro changes and just get it happening, you know, and all of a sudden, it’s going to be easy. It’s just going to be the norm. Like as we say it’s just the normal. Yep. It’s no longer that thing over shining on the shelf. It’s just the day the way we work each day. Yeah. Ingredients, talk to me about how to make the cake.

Evan Englezos
Yeah. So, you know, we did touch on that, you know, you need to, you need to be willing, and, you know, having just that awareness of okay, having cultural, cultural awareness.

Nicole Smith
Important, organisational cultural awareness of how your business works together. All those sorts of things.

Evan Englezos
Sure! Yeah that’s right. Yeah, what I was gonna say, is a culture of continual improvement. Absolutely. And, yeah, and again, that that’s, that’s a shift from, this is the way that we always do things. So and that has to come, it has to come from the top down, but it needs to be, doesn’t have to be embraced. But there needs to be like, an acceptance of that amongst the team. And there needs to be adaptability and like, okay, we are going to try this, we’re going to experiment with something new, we’re going to do something we haven’t done before. And getting as many people as you can on the same page, at least to begin that process will help. But there needs to be a willingness, at least from from the top, there needs to be an understanding of why you’re doing it as well. So all the things we’ve spoken about today, like, why change? What happens if we don’t change? That needs to be communicated and understood by people. You want to have the right people around you as well. Because if you can’t drive this all internal, and you don’t have the resources to make this happen internally, then it’s just not going to work. You won’t have the runs on the board, you won’t have that, the momentum to to get, to get it moving forward enough.

Evan Englezos
Finding that key change maker as well right? That advocate for the systems and the things and getting and rallying the troops to get, you’ll be like uhh this is gonna be amazing. Like, you’re doing this like manually right now, right. You’re looking at your pile of paper, and you’re stamping all the things and then you’re doing all the things but if we do this, that’s gonna save you time. You don’t have to do that anymore. The systems gonna do it for you. Woohoo let’s do it. .

Evan Englezos
Yeah, exactly.

Nicole Smith
I’m getting excited about it.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, so if you don’t have an IT department, you don’t have a CIO or someone like that in your organisation and, look, we don’t, I think we’re kind of it. But like, at least to have a tech champion, who can you know, who has that ability to at least understand things maybe be able to innovate a little bit. But often people also won’t change just by having a tech champion in their organisations. So you need someone external. And sometimes when they hear it externally, it’s like, for me, if I tell my kids something, they’re just not going to get it. But if someone else tells them exactly the same thing, it’s like, oh, okay, they get it. So sometimes having that external person,

Nicole Smith
They’re like oh I can do that, no one’s ever told me that before. That sounds amazing.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, yeah, yeah that’s it. So yeah, like having the right people in your corner to make it happen. And that could be getting someone external, can be good. Yeah, having just that willingness to experiment, as we’ve said, still good to have structure, it’s still good to have that strategy and the plans in place. But they’re just a few things that, because it’s always going to be this combination. And this is why I call myself Digital Team Coach. There’s the digital side of things, and a few people will geek out on that, me and you, which is cool. But there’s also that human side, that personal side. It’s about teamwork. It’s about how people work together. It’s how you connect with your clients, your customers, whoever that is. And so for me that overlap between the team and the digital is so important and getting those dynamics right is what’s going to lead your organisation to success with those two things together.

Nicole Smith
Singing my language. It’s like this is amazinggg. Watch out we’ll like bust out into a full, full harmonising tune here in a minute. That is fabulous. I love all of that. And it’s so important, isn’t it? You know, we both talk about the connection between the tech and the team and being able to really find that, that ground, that place where they really beautifully work together is just such a wonderful, someone coming in and being invited into a space that’s in someone’s business and watching from the moment we first start, and that kind of glazed, I look over at me going, what is, what is happening right now to when we’ve implemented it, and it’s working and they say, this is amazing. Oh, wow, I can see how my business is going to grow now. I can see how my team are going to connect better and communicate better now. And it’s just those things that it’s just a it’s a wonderful experience to be a part of, I’m sure you’ve you’ve experienced that as well with your clients.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, that’s ah yeah, you’re absolutely right. It’s it’s everything we’ve said.

Nicole Smith
Exactly. Well, I think we’ve spoken about how we transform for success, haven’t we? Yeah, all of those elements together, combined, really will support you to to go and build big to whatever, because every business is different. Some businesses are just looking to create themselves in their own business and get themselves really efficient and work however many days they want to a week and then they’ve got the space to do whatever with their family and friends Whereas other people have a drive to build a real big organisation and structure and with that there’s different elements there’s different levels of requirements. But knowing all of that comes back to the strategy. Where your business is heading, having that overarching look at all the elements of your business strategy, right. And the digital element is just one part of it as it grows through.

Evan Englezos
Yeah. And yeah, I have to do that for myself as well. Like, even though like I talk about this stuff, I have to do it for me as well. And the tools that I have, and what works for me now. That changes. Like I remember, like I’d set up Trello a few years ago in a particular way. And then when I got more clients, I’m like, this isn’t working for me anymore. I have to completely restructure it, and so I restructured it, and then things changed again, I’m like Trello, I’ve outgrown Trello for managing clients and managing those projects. So I have to get something else. So it’s a, again, it’s a dynamic tool, clickup, clickup

Nicole Smith
I mean what?! No, absolutely keep going, sorry!

Evan Englezos
I never realised but clickup rhymes with hiccup.

Nicole Smith
Oh, it does!

Evan Englezos
Oh yeah. Sorry. Yeah, so like I like I have to, like take my own medicine with that is that you know, that as my business evolves, as it grows, as focuses change, whatever, whatever that is that I’m working on, I have to be adaptable then in in the tools that I have in the systems and the people who I have around me who I’m working with, as well.

Nicole Smith
And we all learn new things. So every conversation, we learn at least one new thing, right? A new way of doing things, a new way of thinking, a new person we’re connecting with. And so with that knowledge, we evolve ourselves, and we look at and because we are both so in other people’s systems, our minds always evolving. Like, you know, my clickup is just, I always do it, I always move things around, because there’s always a better way right? Yeah. And like not saying that you need to be changing all the time. That’s not what I’m saying. Yeah. But be open to the opportunity that if somebody new comes into your business, or you have a conversation, and it triggers that curiosity of ohh there’s possibly another way of doing this. Be, yeah be curious, lean into that a little bit more, do a little bit of exploration. Maybe it’s not for you, but you now know it’s a thing.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, exactly. That’s good.

Nicole Smith
Wonderful. Is there anything else you want to talk about before we dive into our questions? Our three questions.

Evan Englezos
Let’s do the questions. I think they’re gonna be fun.

Nicole Smith
Cool. All right. You ready? Let’s go. What is your go to app that creates ease in your everyday?

Evan Englezos
look, I wish I could say it’s clickup and it’s, I’m not there yet. But I’m sure on this flower that’s going to blossom and bloom and becoming clickup one day. But like I see the goodness in it and I’m so glad that you are the clickup queen to go to for all that sort of stuff and I have actually been doing some strategy work, I have come down to recommend clickup for several organisations as well. Yes. So big ticks there. For me, it’s a combination. So I use Plutio for my business, particularly the internal communications, the project management, the client portal, the invoices and proposals, things like that. So that does a lot for me. So I’m in there, basically every day. And then also, I, look, I still have Trello. And the reason I have Trello is it’s good for my internal just dumping down ideas. I know there are better tools, I am looking into that at the moment. But I’ve got a card on there, and you’ll hit me. It’s called My weekly focus. And what I do is just like every day, I go into there, it’s like just a little reminder task list where I can just see at a really small glance, okay, these are the things I need to focus on this week. This is who’s in control of it, and this is the day that I need to work on it. It’s like just my little scribble notepad pretty much. And that just keeps rolling every week. So

Nicole Smith
That’s great! You know, I do say this a lot. There’s no right. There’s no one way, there’s no one solution. There’s no, you know, we’re all beautifully unique. So whatever works for you. Some people like notepads, some people like digital, whatever it might be. If it’s working for you in the moment that you’re in right now, then that’s exactly the perfect thing for you to be doing. Yeah, you know, and everyone listening, talking to you as well, not just me. Own it, just own it and live it.

Evan Englezos
Yeah. That’s like my little post it note pretty much that I’ve just got there. Okay, these are the things I need to hit today and this week. And yeah. But yeah, I would love to explore, you know how I can continue to do that better.

Nicole Smith
Fabulous. I think I know the answer to this one. But are you online or paper to-do?

Evan Englezos
Ah ha ha ah. I mean, yeah, it’s pretty much all online. I’m pretty close to paperless. And yeah, like even even just my calendar, I didn’t say the calendar before. But like, I swear by my my calendar, we’ve got different calendars inside the account, and they’re all colour coded. And this is my calendar. This is my wife’s calendar. This is our combined calendar. This is our kids calendar. This is my other work calendar, because I’ve got two jobs. And I need to be able to see all that. So that’s the tab that’s open all the time. So yeah,

Nicole Smith
Yeah, um, I think the key thing through all of our conversations is central location. Yeah. You know, central location for your document repository, a central location for your operational activities, you know, whatever it might be, creating that hub. Yes, your personal and business. I have all my things like I’ve mentioned before in clickup Simon and I have a shopping list. Simon’s actually in clickup. He was funny. The other week he was like, I found this fabulous tool Nicole and I’m like have you?! He was like it’s called clickup. I said stop it, oh, my gosh, that’s amazing. We have our shopping list in there. And he’s right in there and doing there things. And you know, wwe have it all central though, because it’s easy. We don’t need to go. What are we doing for shopping now? It’s all in there. Yeah. So yeah. Awesome. Love it. Love the digital world. So, what would you do if you created more space in your world right now? What would you do?

Evan Englezos
Yeah, that’s, that’s a great question. I do enjoy the training and, and speaking, and I know, I’ve got a lot more I can do to improve in that. But I find that really empowering to be able to share ideas in that way. And I love music as well, which, you know, of course, in a perfect world, I’d have a, you know, music hub and have lots of people just coming in and dropping in and collaborating together or on different music projects. Creating and yeah, I love that. And maybe that’s that’s a one day thing. But yeah, always need more music in our lives.

Evan Englezos
Oh, absolutely. I haven’t had enough music the last like, it’s really funny. I know that it’s the thing that I love. And when I do it, when I prioritise it. Everything seems just so much more amazing. And yet, I don’t always do it. It’s probably one of those things. It’s like I’ll get to it. I do think well, Charlotte has,so my three year old for everyone listening, she started singing. It’s not exactly in tune, but it’s loud.

Evan Englezos
Beautiful. That’s all you need at that age, that’s great.

Nicole Smith
She’s got the percussion instruments going and we have a bright old time. So yeah, that community element of what you organise with your beautiful music is such a, such a lovely thing to be involved in over the last few years. So I’m really excited for more of those to come.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, and it’s really interesting like that you’ve mentioned that, like how we’ve had to adapt during COVID Like, how do we collaborate? How do we even make music and make art through COVID when you can’t move more than five kilometres or 10 kilometres, you know, out of your house. And so we’ve had to adapt how we do that. And, you know, some amazing some of the work and that you see online, how artists do things today is, you know, I love that element of creativity and really being forced to think outside the box. How do we do this differently? And so yes, it means, you know, we’ve lost some of those things, and I really do miss live music in person. But we’ve learned different things and different skills and different ways of being able to create together and there’s a different beauty in that.

Nicole Smith
Absolutely. And some of, oh my goodness, some of the tech tools that you have I’ve discovered through you from it’s just from the creative musical side have been amazing. The world that you created for you know, the saddle, the last saddle we did don’t even talk about the cats beautiful tech masks tech thing that you did create it there was and then I love the video explaining it all talk about process. Oh, yeah. All the thing I don’t forget.

Evan Englezos
Yeah. I mean, that was a fun project with the musical Magua amps. And, like, what I loved about that during lockdown is that the and the structure that they had was like, you get given a song to do and you’ve got three days to come up with a performance that you have to do live on zoom on Facebook in front of whoever’s watching. And so it’s like, okay, I could manage that with my young family, okay, can manage dedicating three nights to trying to come up with something, and then just being forced to have to do it. And so for me, that gave me the opportunity. Okay, how do I do this differently? How can I, what, how much can I learn? How much can I push myself? In that very short space of time, which is all I could commit to anyway. What can I do with a computer and microphone, and a webcam that’s more than just hi guys, I’m gonna sing to the camera right now. So like, I just use that as an opportunity to, to really try and think outside the box and get creative on that. So

Nicole Smith
You definitely went very outside the box. It was amazing to experience from a viewer point of view, the creations that you put together for all of your performances, even the first one with some in Phantom when you think it was Phantom, when you’re walking through. Oh, Les Mes, Yeah. You know, transitioning through and all the things it was just, you know, amazing.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, I just want to push it like because Zoom is fairly static. Yeah. And zoom fatigue is real. Yeah. Like, okay, so what can we do that’s different? There’s a there’s a dude, I can’t remember his name. He goes around, he’s got like this rig with, like, a laptop and a green screen behind him and, and he’s like, carrying it also, so rigged up to him. And he does

Nicole Smith
Kind of like Bert in Mary Poppins with the

Evan Englezos
Yeah, exactly. But he goes around and has zoom meetings. But with the green screen, it’s completely portable. So he’s going on rollercoasters and driving cars. And so it looks like he’s, you know, in the meeting, but he’s, you know, something’s going on. And he’s got people around him laughing at him. And, like, I just love it’s stupid, but it’s just, it’s just helps us to bust the box that we live in. And yeah, I love that comic Kenny or someone I can’t remember his name. But you know, obviously American just stupid. But yeah, I love that stuff.

Nicole Smith
You know, like, you know, again come back to that pendulum of moving so online. Yeah, just let’s have fun with it. Yeah, let’s just, you know, try and test things out just enjoy or just, you know, doesn’t work doesn’t work, but just enjoy it. You know, let’s not make so

Evan Englezos
And that feeds completely back into the ingredients for transformation is you need to have that sense of fun, that sense of adventure trying something new. And creativity is like that’s a it’s a loaded word. But if you can even just bring a little bit of creativity, it doesn’t mean you have to sing and dance while you’re working. But we bring creativity

Nicole Smith
Unless you’re me and you get singing voice message.

Evan Englezos
Well, unless you, Nicole. But you can bring creativity into the process. You bring creativity into your relationships, and then into the work that you do. And so I think that’s another real key ingredient. And just that, that fun that we can have together.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much.

Nicole Smith
Thank you, this was fun.

Nicole Smith
I always love our conversation. I know what to do another one soon, talking about speaking. We were talking about something before so I think I’ll get that. Get that rolling, rocking and rolling. And yeah, I love talking as well so let’s talk everyone. Okay, so where can everyone find you? We’re are you in the digital space.

Evan Englezos
Yeah, where am I? I’m in a few places. So Digital Team Coaches, is my business. So digitalteamcoach.com and just on the socials with digital team coach. And then the music project for a bit of fun is liveinthesaddle.com and live in the saddle on the socials. That’s heaps of fun. And Tomorrow Pod is my new podcast. So tomorrowpod.net. And Nicole and I know we’re going to line you up soon on there, too. So yeah, it’s and my name is Evan Englezos. So if you can say it or speller, then you’ll probably find this somewhere as well.

Nicole Smith
I can’t clearly after two years,

Evan Englezos
You’re great. No, you’re fine.

Nicole Smith
Try my darndest. But you know

Evan Englezos
That’s all I need from you, Nicole. That’s fine.

Nicole Smith
Thank you. Yeah. Oh, amazing. Thank you so much. As always, we’re gonna pop all those details in the show notes. So please pop over use the calculator our work out how much time you can create and or, you know, find, you know, find back in your business by looking at how digital transformation can really transform you. Wonderful. Well, thanks again, Evan. And everybody who is listening. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and enjoy creating space and time freedom. Bye now.

Evan Englezos
Bye, thanks Nicole.

Nicole Smith
Well, there we go. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been such a pleasure having you on board. Have we connected on socials yet? If not, please come on over say hi, I’m on all the platforms @theartisanssolutions. So I’d really look forward to seeing you over there. And if you enjoy today’s episode, don’t forget to tag me and I’d love it if you could leave a review. And of course share this with others so others can come and join us next time. All right, then everyone have a fabulous rest of the week. And until next time, see you then

Transcribed by https://otter.ai