hi I’m Evan Carmichael welcome to
another edition of entrepreneur tools
I’m a little sick today so excuse me
from a little nasal and my talking today
I want to talk about one of my favorite
tools that I use to run my business
called Google Docs which has been
upgraded to Google Drive and what I use
it for is to collaborate with my team
run surveys and do mail merges with
Gmail so I’m going to quickly touch on
all of them and hopefully you get a few
ideas to help grow your business as well
so I’m on my patriotic tools I’m going
to go find Docs and this is it here the
link click learn more now used to be
called Google Docs and now it’s called
Google Drive and this is my drive here
and basically what it is is you can
think of it as an external hard drive
for your files and a lot of people will
use this to store files here I’ve got
kind of like excel files I’ve got Word
documents I’ve got PDFs in here and it’s
an external drive so you can access it
from any computer that you’re on and
it’s also easy to share individual files
if I wanted to share some of these I
could easily and I can also set
permissions so other people can edit
them so you can see here that adhesives
on my team has edited this file so it’s
been modified by someone else other than
me now I don’t really use it for having
an external hard drive or like using
Dropbox instead but what I do use it for
the biggest reason why I signed up for
it is I needed a way to collaborate with
my team who was remote so when everybody
on my team almost does not work with me
in my office or spread out across the
world I needed a way to run our projects
in a way that was really easy to do and
I looked at a number of different
programs like Basecamp and a few other
ones that were project management
systems and just found them to be too
cumbersome there are too many steps to
add a task and it might make sense for
really long or huge projects and involve
a lot of people but for you know if
you’re just an entrepreneur you have
individual people that you need to deal
with I found it easier just to run a
simple Google Doc file or Google Drive
file and it basically looks like an
excel file that lists all the different
tasks that are coming up so I’m going to
show you a couple that I use
one is with Joel Mar and Gretchen which
is a husband-and-wife team that I happen
to Philippines and that Adisa is my
programmer who is currently in Holland
so we’ll load both of these and we can
see what we’re doing here so this is a
Jo Marlys and they do a lot of marketing
admin stuff personal assistants stuff
for me and so it looks like an excel
file so it’s called Jo mark to do it
something we both share I can edit it
they can edit it and it’ll show
basically lists of tasks I have to get
done so things with Pinterest picture of
the day we can update so they’re finding
they’re telling me the weather and
movies and events to do in my city of
Toronto every weekend and just like
Excel you can have lots of different
spreadsheets and there’s a whole bunch
of different things you can add you know
whatever you want so if I click on my
Facebook schedule these are some of the
things that they’re responsible for
posting onto the Facebook page and a
great great way to be able to share
information and both be able to update
it this was also really helpful when we
were training because I had never
actually met them in person only over
the phone and online and it’s great to
be able to have everything documented
written down in a file that you can both
edit and share an update and whenever
something needs to be changed we can
both log in here and make that change so
it’s this it basically runs our
relationship and it’s been a great tool
to be able to quickly use while I like
this over a drop box you could just
Dropbox in Excel files an example and
you can both modify it the challenges
you can’t both edit at the same time so
if you’re using the same file at the
same time you’re going to have
conflicted copies where here I can edit
it at the same time that GEOMAR and
Gretchen are editing it and it’s easy to
be able to you know have those changes
and keep them updated I’ll show you
another one this is a DC was my
programmer so this is slightly different
things so we are always updating new
tasks so with your mark Gretchen it’s
more habitual things certain processes
that have to be done every day or every
week every month and with a decent
programmer we’re looking at new things
that have to be done on an ongoing basis
as we’re developing new features for our
website so what happens here is I’ll
make a list and this goes on and on and
on
we all have the to dues that we want to
get done for our website and then we
have to kind of prioritize them and so
basically what he says every day is he
logs into the Google Drive here and
looks at what’s number one on the list
and they’ll start working his way
through so I will add these projects to
the list and then when he’s done he’ll
click on he’ll add done here so I know
that it’s done and I can take a look and
I will be yourself so for removing
things from the list so we have it set
that I’m the only one who adds to the
list and also removes from the list and
so you know he’ll click done and so I
can always check it out before it gets
removed and if we have any comments here
we can add it in and we can easily talk
about it together so I’ll try to explain
what I want and hopefully that makes
sense and if it doesn’t then he can add
some comments in as well and he simply
starts working through that list task by
task and so I found it to be just so
much easier than using something like
Basecamp because you just add to the
file and we could put in priority and he
just starts hammering away on these
every day when he logs into his computer
so that’s the first reason I signed up
for Google Drive and it’s basically an
easy way to be able to collaborate with
your team if they’re not especially if
they’re not in the same city as you
there’s a couple other really cool ways
to be able to use it that I discovered
later on the next one is with surveys so
if you ever have to run a survey instead
of having to use external software you
can just use Google Drive as well so
through my newsletter I run a survey so
I’ll click on here for some results and
we’ll ask questions for the survey and
people will answer it not a lot of
questions but you can add as many or as
few as you want and this goes on and on
and on and on and on and basically
people will add their information and
they’ll answer the question you can see
when they added it in and it’s a great
way to be able to collect information
have it all in a file that is basically
like an excel file that you can export
if you want to and then play around with
the data if you need to as well and it’s
really easy to set up a forum we click
here go form I can click go to live
forum and this is what the survey looks
like so at the end of my newsletter I
always say please fill out our form
would really appreciate your feedback
and these are some of the questions that
come up so not that many questions just
a little bit to learn about
our audience and what they’re looking
for and this is it’s really easy to set
this up and Google gives you templates
that you can use and if you’re curious
to set this up for yourself on the page
here where I talk about my favorite
tools there’s a link here about running
surveys it goes to a help page that
basically explains how to set up the
survey page automatically and it’s all
free
so magic word for entrepreneurs so this
is what the forum creates and when
somebody fills this in it will go here
and you can then you know analyze the
data do whatever you want with it so
it’s awesome to be able to run the
surveys and have the data easily
accessible and then the third way I use
it is to create mail merges and I’ve
switched over from Outlook to Gmail and
one of the things I really loved about
outlook was ability to do mail merges so
if you want to send a customized email
to a group of people you could easily
mail merge a Word document with Outlook
and it’ll customize each message to them
so it looks like it’s being personalized
instead of having you know 500 people
and BCC and saying dear friend not
really personalized so the good news is
I found a way to be able to do a mail
merge between Google Drive and Gmail and
it was a free tool that’s created by
digital inspiration and I’ll load it up
here so you guys can take a look and
basically what this does is it’ll
connect to your Google contacts so
through Gmail whatever contacts you have
you can send up to 476 emails in a day
and I don’t ever go over that but it’s a
great way to be able to send it out what
you do is you put in your email subject
whatever salutation whatever message you
want your name your email and then if
you click mail merge and go import
Google contacts it’ll get a prompt that
will then say what’s your Google
contacts group names you just create a
group on your Google contacts and it can
import all those guys to you
automatically and then you just go mail
merge and start mail merge and it’ll
send it off to all of these people that
I put in here so I put their first name
so it’ll just say hi first name when it
sends the actual message and it looks
like it’s a customized email going out
to everybody so I used to love that
feature about Outlook and was sad that I
couldn’t do it in Gmail and it was great
to be able to find this
way to quickly be able to do that mail
merge automatically from your google
contacts if you just have a spreadsheet
you can also just pop it in here with
their name and their email and that’s
another way instead of importing from
Google contacts if you’re saving your
data somewhere else so that’s a quick
overview about my drive the Google Drive
program and how I use it again I use it
mainly to collaborate with my team I
found it really super easy to share
files and edit them together much easier
than other project management tools I
use it to run surveys with my audience
and find out what they’re interested in
and I use it to run mail merges when I
have important emails I don’t want to
send out that can be customized so
hopefully that was interesting and gives
you a few ideas of things that you might
be able to do with your business if you
guys liked the video and you want to see
more please give it a thumbs up below
what makes you want to do more of these
videos for you and if you have a
question about Google Drive or another
tool or anything else about your
business feel free to leave it in the
comments below I always read those and I
look forward to hearing from you so
we’ll see you on the next episode Cheers
you
another edition of entrepreneur tools
I’m a little sick today so excuse me
from a little nasal and my talking today
I want to talk about one of my favorite
tools that I use to run my business
called Google Docs which has been
upgraded to Google Drive and what I use
it for is to collaborate with my team
run surveys and do mail merges with
Gmail so I’m going to quickly touch on
all of them and hopefully you get a few
ideas to help grow your business as well
so I’m on my patriotic tools I’m going
to go find Docs and this is it here the
link click learn more now used to be
called Google Docs and now it’s called
Google Drive and this is my drive here
and basically what it is is you can
think of it as an external hard drive
for your files and a lot of people will
use this to store files here I’ve got
kind of like excel files I’ve got Word
documents I’ve got PDFs in here and it’s
an external drive so you can access it
from any computer that you’re on and
it’s also easy to share individual files
if I wanted to share some of these I
could easily and I can also set
permissions so other people can edit
them so you can see here that adhesives
on my team has edited this file so it’s
been modified by someone else other than
me now I don’t really use it for having
an external hard drive or like using
Dropbox instead but what I do use it for
the biggest reason why I signed up for
it is I needed a way to collaborate with
my team who was remote so when everybody
on my team almost does not work with me
in my office or spread out across the
world I needed a way to run our projects
in a way that was really easy to do and
I looked at a number of different
programs like Basecamp and a few other
ones that were project management
systems and just found them to be too
cumbersome there are too many steps to
add a task and it might make sense for
really long or huge projects and involve
a lot of people but for you know if
you’re just an entrepreneur you have
individual people that you need to deal
with I found it easier just to run a
simple Google Doc file or Google Drive
file and it basically looks like an
excel file that lists all the different
tasks that are coming up so I’m going to
show you a couple that I use
one is with Joel Mar and Gretchen which
is a husband-and-wife team that I happen
to Philippines and that Adisa is my
programmer who is currently in Holland
so we’ll load both of these and we can
see what we’re doing here so this is a
Jo Marlys and they do a lot of marketing
admin stuff personal assistants stuff
for me and so it looks like an excel
file so it’s called Jo mark to do it
something we both share I can edit it
they can edit it and it’ll show
basically lists of tasks I have to get
done so things with Pinterest picture of
the day we can update so they’re finding
they’re telling me the weather and
movies and events to do in my city of
Toronto every weekend and just like
Excel you can have lots of different
spreadsheets and there’s a whole bunch
of different things you can add you know
whatever you want so if I click on my
Facebook schedule these are some of the
things that they’re responsible for
posting onto the Facebook page and a
great great way to be able to share
information and both be able to update
it this was also really helpful when we
were training because I had never
actually met them in person only over
the phone and online and it’s great to
be able to have everything documented
written down in a file that you can both
edit and share an update and whenever
something needs to be changed we can
both log in here and make that change so
it’s this it basically runs our
relationship and it’s been a great tool
to be able to quickly use while I like
this over a drop box you could just
Dropbox in Excel files an example and
you can both modify it the challenges
you can’t both edit at the same time so
if you’re using the same file at the
same time you’re going to have
conflicted copies where here I can edit
it at the same time that GEOMAR and
Gretchen are editing it and it’s easy to
be able to you know have those changes
and keep them updated I’ll show you
another one this is a DC was my
programmer so this is slightly different
things so we are always updating new
tasks so with your mark Gretchen it’s
more habitual things certain processes
that have to be done every day or every
week every month and with a decent
programmer we’re looking at new things
that have to be done on an ongoing basis
as we’re developing new features for our
website so what happens here is I’ll
make a list and this goes on and on and
on
we all have the to dues that we want to
get done for our website and then we
have to kind of prioritize them and so
basically what he says every day is he
logs into the Google Drive here and
looks at what’s number one on the list
and they’ll start working his way
through so I will add these projects to
the list and then when he’s done he’ll
click on he’ll add done here so I know
that it’s done and I can take a look and
I will be yourself so for removing
things from the list so we have it set
that I’m the only one who adds to the
list and also removes from the list and
so you know he’ll click done and so I
can always check it out before it gets
removed and if we have any comments here
we can add it in and we can easily talk
about it together so I’ll try to explain
what I want and hopefully that makes
sense and if it doesn’t then he can add
some comments in as well and he simply
starts working through that list task by
task and so I found it to be just so
much easier than using something like
Basecamp because you just add to the
file and we could put in priority and he
just starts hammering away on these
every day when he logs into his computer
so that’s the first reason I signed up
for Google Drive and it’s basically an
easy way to be able to collaborate with
your team if they’re not especially if
they’re not in the same city as you
there’s a couple other really cool ways
to be able to use it that I discovered
later on the next one is with surveys so
if you ever have to run a survey instead
of having to use external software you
can just use Google Drive as well so
through my newsletter I run a survey so
I’ll click on here for some results and
we’ll ask questions for the survey and
people will answer it not a lot of
questions but you can add as many or as
few as you want and this goes on and on
and on and on and on and basically
people will add their information and
they’ll answer the question you can see
when they added it in and it’s a great
way to be able to collect information
have it all in a file that is basically
like an excel file that you can export
if you want to and then play around with
the data if you need to as well and it’s
really easy to set up a forum we click
here go form I can click go to live
forum and this is what the survey looks
like so at the end of my newsletter I
always say please fill out our form
would really appreciate your feedback
and these are some of the questions that
come up so not that many questions just
a little bit to learn about
our audience and what they’re looking
for and this is it’s really easy to set
this up and Google gives you templates
that you can use and if you’re curious
to set this up for yourself on the page
here where I talk about my favorite
tools there’s a link here about running
surveys it goes to a help page that
basically explains how to set up the
survey page automatically and it’s all
free
so magic word for entrepreneurs so this
is what the forum creates and when
somebody fills this in it will go here
and you can then you know analyze the
data do whatever you want with it so
it’s awesome to be able to run the
surveys and have the data easily
accessible and then the third way I use
it is to create mail merges and I’ve
switched over from Outlook to Gmail and
one of the things I really loved about
outlook was ability to do mail merges so
if you want to send a customized email
to a group of people you could easily
mail merge a Word document with Outlook
and it’ll customize each message to them
so it looks like it’s being personalized
instead of having you know 500 people
and BCC and saying dear friend not
really personalized so the good news is
I found a way to be able to do a mail
merge between Google Drive and Gmail and
it was a free tool that’s created by
digital inspiration and I’ll load it up
here so you guys can take a look and
basically what this does is it’ll
connect to your Google contacts so
through Gmail whatever contacts you have
you can send up to 476 emails in a day
and I don’t ever go over that but it’s a
great way to be able to send it out what
you do is you put in your email subject
whatever salutation whatever message you
want your name your email and then if
you click mail merge and go import
Google contacts it’ll get a prompt that
will then say what’s your Google
contacts group names you just create a
group on your Google contacts and it can
import all those guys to you
automatically and then you just go mail
merge and start mail merge and it’ll
send it off to all of these people that
I put in here so I put their first name
so it’ll just say hi first name when it
sends the actual message and it looks
like it’s a customized email going out
to everybody so I used to love that
feature about Outlook and was sad that I
couldn’t do it in Gmail and it was great
to be able to find this
way to quickly be able to do that mail
merge automatically from your google
contacts if you just have a spreadsheet
you can also just pop it in here with
their name and their email and that’s
another way instead of importing from
Google contacts if you’re saving your
data somewhere else so that’s a quick
overview about my drive the Google Drive
program and how I use it again I use it
mainly to collaborate with my team I
found it really super easy to share
files and edit them together much easier
than other project management tools I
use it to run surveys with my audience
and find out what they’re interested in
and I use it to run mail merges when I
have important emails I don’t want to
send out that can be customized so
hopefully that was interesting and gives
you a few ideas of things that you might
be able to do with your business if you
guys liked the video and you want to see
more please give it a thumbs up below
what makes you want to do more of these
videos for you and if you have a
question about Google Drive or another
tool or anything else about your
business feel free to leave it in the
comments below I always read those and I
look forward to hearing from you so
we’ll see you on the next episode Cheers
you
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