Title: Emily Caddell – How To Build Your Virtual Team Through Engaging Meetings

Guest: Emily Caddell

Peter: Welcome to the Biz and Life Done Well podcast, where we explore what it means and what it takes to do business and life well. I’m your host, Peter Wilson. If you’re like me, you’re intrigued by stories of common people who have achieved uncommon success in business and life. Join me as I interview fascinating people about how they got started, their successes and failures, their habits and routines, and what inspires them.

Peter: Well, this week I am really excited to introduce my guest, Emily Caddell. She is the director of marketing for bizmarketing.com. And this week we are going to talk about how we, as a team at Biz Marketing, stay connected and productive in a virtual world. Emily, say hello.

Emily: Hi, everyone. I’m Emily.

Peter: So Emily is in Boston, in the Boston area, and the core of our team is here in Seattle. So how long have you been out that way, Emily?

Emily: Yeah. So I’ve been with biz marketing for about four and a half years, and I’ve been in Boston for three of those years.

Peter: So I’ll never forget the day that Emily said, Hey, she was working here in Seattle with her, or in the Edmonds, Seattle area with us. She said, Hey, my husband got this job and he’s going to take it and we’re going to move to Boston. And the next breath was, And I want to keep working for

Emily: you. Yep.

Peter: My first reaction was, heck yeah. So there was a moment of panic. And then when you said that, I was like, oh.

Emily: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I had already been working from home for about two months with my baby. So it was like, well, I’ll just do it from Boston instead of Seattle and it’s worked out great.

Peter: So pre pandemic, we were already virtual, working virtually and kind of learning. Right? So we’ve got Emily in the Boston area. We’ve got Anne who’s in the Edmonds area, Tim who’s in the Edmonds area. Both of them are work from home.

I’ve got Kyle, who’s our designer. He’s here most of the time in the office, although during the peak of the pandemic, he was working remote. And I come to this office. I also have a home office that I work from. We also have Chris Goldman, who is our marketing messaging and business coach expert, and he is with us.

He spends most of his time virtual. And then we also have a member of our team, Paul, who does a lot of our SEO work, is in Cape Town, South Africa. So we really have I never expected to do this, but we ended up with these people all over the world.

Emily: Oh yeah, we’re all over the place.

Peter: Which is kind of cool to make it work. I remember when I went to, South America for about three weeks, about 2018, 2019, late twenty eighteen, early twenty nineteen, and I had just 100% confidence that everything would be okay because we had already sort of set up, you know, this cadence of working virtually. We had all the tools in place and I think it worked out really well. So I guess the first thing I want to ask you is, you know, why do you think this is important to not just wing it, so to speak?

Emily: Yeah. So, obviously, we’ve already talked about we’re all virtual for the most part in different time zones. We’re all over. But we also all have very different personalities, and we all work very differently. So I think it’s really important that when we come together during a meeting, or whatever we’re doing, that we kind of have an agenda set or it can just kind of turn into spitballing and we don’t get much done.

So it’s become really important for us to have a very set time where we do specific work and we do specific things just to kind of keep us together and keep us working well.

Peter: Agreed. I think the thing that I think about is when we started growing, we started adding folks and it was like, and I think you’re putting it mildly that we’re all different personalities and we worked. And I was faced with the challenge up to that point, I’d just been, you know, me and one other person. So that’s a totally different dynamic. But when we started adding folks, then it became important to have some sort of common shared experience and some language that we could use and just a shared experience where we could share.

So we started doing weekly team meetings and I really was not doing a very good job when I got started. We were just kind of going around the room and saying whatever was on our mind. So kind of like you said, spitballing, right? And then we went to some leadership conferences as a team. We did global leadership summit and one of the speakers really emphasized the value of having weekly one on ones with your team.

He said, that’s probably your most important job as a leader in your organization. And he also stressed like, what is the agenda? What should the agenda be? Which I roughly follow this, which is what are your priorities and how can I help you? You know, hopefully, I don’t know how you feel about that agenda or that conversation.

I mean, we don’t necessarily follow it all the time, but in the back of my mind, that’s what I’m hoping that we cover.

Emily: Yeah, absolutely. I think with one on ones, again, it’s the same thing of we don’t want to just be throwing stuff out there, wasting each other’s time. And you have a one on one with each of your staff members every single week, so that time is precious. And so it’s been really good to have kind of a set, hey, this is what I actually need to talk to you about and how can you help me accomplish those tasks? So that’s been a great agenda for our one on ones.

Peter: Yeah. I appreciate that. And it’s funny because some of the folks that I’ve worked with have never done weekly one on ones, you know, with their team or their manager or whatever. So it’s been an interesting adjustment. I think it’s also it’s a lot easier to course correct when you’re doing these one on ones, right?

It’s a lot harder when you’re not doing it and then things go off the rails and you’re just like, how did we get here? Right?

Emily: Oh, yeah. Well, not everything can be virtual. Like, if we’re just telegramming each other, which is one of the tools we use to communicate, it’s like, okay, that’s not going in-depth about what we need to do. So there’s a limit to what can actually be done fully virtually and what needs to be at least a conversation. Right.

Keeping those one on ones has been important in keeping us all connected with our work.

Peter: Right. So in addition to the one on ones, we do this, weekly team meeting, which we mentioned earlier, and we have a set agenda. And again, I think Emily was one of the prime drivers of that. Like let’s not spitball this, let’s have a agenda. I think her first thing she wanted to do was have kind of an educational thing and sort of make it meaningful to everybody, which we’ve actually added recently back into the meeting.

So when we started this, we really got intentional about this about a year ago. And at the time of the pandemic, we were just kind of like, hey, we’re going to lock arms and get through this guys. We don’t know what’s going to happen. And I was really impressed with the way that everybody stepped up. And one of the things we did was we had these weekly webinars where we were coaching businesses on getting through the crisis.

And we were also doing a lot of stuff for our clients that was way outside of the realm of what they signed up for and we were expected to do for them, like proactively reaching out to them saying, you need to put something on your website that says you’re open. Or I remember you sending out like tons of emails to clients, right? Oh yeah. So it’s kind of this crisis mode. So one of the things that we put on the agenda is the first thing we talk about is high tide.

So what does that mean to you, that high tide conversation?

Emily: So high tide is kind of just what’s something that went really well for you this week? And this is usually personal, not work related, but what did you what have you enjoyed this week? So it can be anything from, oh, the weather was great this weekend to, oh, I gotta see my parents this weekend, whatever it was. It just kinda starts our meeting off on a high note.

Peter: Yeah. It’s funny. There’s a variety of things that come up.

Emily: Oh my god. It’s very different.

Peter: High tides could be, I saw the sun yesterday or I got to be outside or yeah. So I got to be with somebody. And then the next thing we do is delighted or disappointed. Do you want to sort of describe what that’s all about?

Emily: Yeah. So this goes on a rotation basis. We just rotate whose week it is to share. So delighted or disappointed is what experience did you have with a different kind of company? It doesn’t even need to be a company that we do work for that was a good experience or a bad experience.

So you share whether you were delighted with them or disappointed and why. So usually comes down to their customer service. Either their customer service was great or it wasn’t. But it’s a good way for us to be like, oh, we want to do those things or we we don’t want to be a company like that. So it’s kind of just a good way to keep in mind other companies and what they’re doing.

Peter: Yeah, I think you yeah, the customer experience is really the key. I think the biggest frustration that we hear when it’s disappointed, it’s some company did something and it was, they just made something very difficult, And so we’re like, well, we don’t want to be that difficult. Let’s make it easy. So that’s, you know, one of the things we’ve done is if we run into an issue, you know, we always on the side of the customer, our customer, and try to, you know, do as best we can to fix things and take care of them. And so then the next thing we have is not on our rotation in terms of the weekly rotation of people who are doing the thing, the delight or disappointing, but it’s a customer story.

So what do you think about that? What does that what purpose does that serve for us?

Emily: Yeah. So a customer story is if you had a connection with a customer one of our customers during the week, and they had a very positive experience, and they can voice that, this is a great time to talk about that. So like you said, at the beginning of the pandemic, we had an insane amount of work that we were doing for people that was out of bounds and we would just get a ton of random appreciation that was great for stuff that we were doing. So it’s a good way to say like, hey, we did this and they appreciated it. And then it kind of helps us be like, okay, so if they enjoyed that, maybe we can continue to have these conversations and grow and figure out how we can do things for other customers.

Peter: Exactly. And the other thing that I think is really important is we are virtual as a team. So I can’t hear a conversation that Emily has on the phone with a client. And Anne can’t hear that. I can’t have the, I can’t hear the conversations Anne has with a client.

So none of us get a chance to share an experience when there’s some positive feedback from a client. So it’s an opportunity for everybody to take part because everybody has probably contributed in some way to that client, maybe not for that specific thing, but certainly along the way, each of us has had some input and some, you know, has contributed to that success of that experience for the client. So it’s really, I think it’s super important just for people to hear the good news, right?

Emily: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Peter: So yeah, I can think of some where we’ve had, I’m trying to just pick off a few off the top of my head. You know, we had one business who said they quadrupled their business in 2020, and they shared that with me personally. And they said a lot of it was due to, or at least we had contributed to that success. That’s an amazing story that I wanted to share with the team. Sometimes it could be something very simple like, hey, I needed to get the word out and Emily jumped on this thing and sent this email out to all my customers.

I’m so thankful. It just turned out great. So it could be like big things and it could be little things as well. But I think it just sort of creates the fabric of who we are, right? It’s our shared story.

Emily: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And customer service is extremely important to us. So it’s always good to hear that feedback when it’s like, okay, we did this right. And it always is like a good team motivator.

Peter: Exactly. In fact, what’s funny is we rarely, I mean, we’re not perfect, but we rarely hear things that went wrong. I mean, there’s, maybe I’m just not hearing it.

Emily: Yeah, no, I agree.

Peter: We don’t get a lot of complaints, which part of has to do with our ticketing system that we have in place. And we’ll be talking about the specific tools we use in a future episode that we use to stay connected and to run our organization. But Zendesk is one of the tools we use for ticketing. So if somebody has a issue, there’s one email to send it to, support at, and one phone number to call and one button to press, and that’s it. And they can get things done.

And so we’ve got the customer story. Then we have a shout out, team shout out. So what what’s that all about?

Emily: Yeah. So this is new, but we just felt like it was a good time to say like, hey, I really appreciated your work on this. And it was like, I could not have done it without you. So I really appreciate you doing this thing. It kind of just brings awareness because again, we’re all virtual.

So I don’t always know what Tim did for Kyle or what Anne did for you. It’s just a good way to say like, this was awesome. You really stepped up. Like, can think of one example that I really needed Anne to do something for me on a Thursday morning. And she was not on, it’s 10:00 my time, 07:00 her time.

Yeah. But it had to get done. And she got on and got it done. And it was like, hey, you didn’t you didn’t need to do that before your work hours, but you did because you care. And so that was a huge, like, shout out to Anne for Mhmm.

Caring so much that you did that on a Thursday morning.

Peter: Right. So it’s, again, it’s sort of going back to the fabric of the organization, right? Yeah. So sharing these things about the individual team members. Again, being virtual, it’s so hard.

You know, we’re almost like trying to overcompensate for the fact that virtual, right? Some people might think, do that on a weekly basis? Are you crazy? But I think it’s paying big dividends. And then we have a period of the meeting where we have so on the first Wednesday, we do our meetings on Wednesdays.

So the first Wednesday of the month, we have one particular agenda item. Second Wednesday, we have another. Third Wednesday, have a different. Fourth, we have a different. Fifth bonus week, it’s kind of freestyle.

So the first Wednesday of the month, we do a creative session. You want to talk about that a little bit?

Emily: Yeah. So, we put something out weekly on our blog posts or a podcast and we put that out in a newsletter. So once a month, we go through and we discuss what we would like to put out this month. And it’s kind of just a good like, it’s not just one person thinking, oh, that would be a good idea. It’s kind of a team of like, what are you hearing that people need to know right now?

So we kind of just list out what would be good for the month, and then I go and turn that into a calendar for the month that we’re going to use for our content.

Peter: So then the second Wednesday of the month, we do a KPI review. So we have a Google Sheet, and we’ve done this for quite a while now. So we look at some shared numbers like, you know, total number of customers. We have basically two different classifications of clients, one from a franchise we support and then kind of everybody else. So we look at the total numbers there, kind of where we’re at, up and down, who did we add in the last period, the last month, who went away, if any, that sort of thing.

And then we go into the specific areas of specific products that are individual for each area. So I think you do social and you keep track of what are some of the other things you do?

Emily: Social and email.

Peter: Email. That’s right. Again, I think it’s helpful to just see the growth actually as a number, not just say, hey, we’re really growing, but to actually see a number. Because I think for me, it helps me appreciate, and I’m sure other people on the team can appreciate like the amount of work you’re doing.

Emily: Right? Oh

Peter: yeah. Make it look super easy, you know, like, you know, any pro would, but I think there’s a danger, right, in that not actually stopping, even though some people might say, well, that’s not important. Well, it is important again because like Kyle, he does our design work and he makes it look real easy, right? But he does a lot of designs. So you have your section, then we have a website section.

So we have Tim, our developer, who is developing websites and Kyle is our creative for the websites. So each time we add a site to our growing family of clients for sites we’ve created, you know, that gets added to that. And we can kind of pat ourselves on the back and clap and take a look at it, right? And all that. And then we’ve got Anne who is looking at the different areas that she is taking care with reviews and just sort of the overall, you know, a lot of the details for the clients, new clients and things like that.

And then also we look at the number of tickets that we had for the month. So that’s sort of another measure of like, so we want to, you know, we want to have sort of subjective, like, we doing okay? But I actually want to get objective numbers too. Let’s link it to the numbers as well. Right?

Emily: Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s a good way just for us to keep track of what’s going on.

Peter: Yeah. And it’s, so it’s a bit of a scoreboard, but it’s not like, you know, like if we lose a client, right? Usually it’s through no fault of our own. So it’s like, okay, that one went away. Sorry to see him go.

Know, let’s Okay, have a moment of they’re gone. So we’ve got the KPIs. Then the third week we do the design. It’s a design show and tell where Kyle gets to show us ads he’s working on, probably stuff you’ve worked with him on.

Emily: Mhmm. Yeah. He shows us his ads. He shows us if he has a website that he’s designed that we haven’t seen in the last month. Whatever is going on, it’s just kind of a good because we sometimes we don’t even see those things get put into place.

Some of the other team members don’t. So it’s a good way for us to just see some of the stuff that we’re putting out.

Peter: Well, the company is in its tenth year now. And what’s really rewarding for me is like not to even know some of this stuff until the Desai show up. I’m blown away. That’s

Emily: Oh, really yeah.

Peter: And then the fourth week is really kind of special. So this one is part of a different rotation, which is a monthly rotation. So do you want to talk about that? It’s our education not really it’s education we call it education moment, but it’s more than that.

Emily: Yeah. So this is this is actually kind of what started our team meetings was, okay, we need to be doing something. So every week, we try to come up with we did some, like, personality tests. Listened to all these different podcasts, whatever. And so this has kind of become a more rotating.

So the way we’ve rotated it now, you’ll only get it every couple months, it’ll be your turn to share. And it’s just an extended time of maybe a TED Talk that we can all listen to during the meeting, or something that you just think would be good for our team to grow personally and professionally. So it’s kind of just turned into a good time for an extended education. And so far it’s been really good. I think we’ve learned some good stuff.

Peter: Yeah. I I stole this concept from I’m in BNI Business Networking International, and each week they have an educational moment. And I was the education coordinator for a year, and it’s probably one of the harder positions in the chapter, but it is really rewarding to just discover what other folks on your team are listening to, something that they’ve run across. And I think one of the things that kind of defines everybody on the team is they are all interested in their personal development and growth. And regardless of where we are in our career or age or anything, that’s one thing that kind of is, again, part of the fabric of who we are.

Emily: Yeah, agreed. I definitely think we all really care about moving forward in our development. So it’s been really good to just even share a little bit of what we’re doing on the side.

Peter: And I think some of the things like the Enneagram, which is a sort of a personality, I don’t know what you how you’d describe it, that’s been enlightening, helped us maybe work better together as a team. Most of the folks on our team are introverts. So I may have introvert tendencies, but I’ve been known as an introvert. So it’s really helpful to just sit and talk about things that are bigger than all of us.

Emily: Oh, yeah. Definitely. And I think with, like, the personality tests and stuff like that, it’s really gotten made us get to know each other better and maybe pick up on some ways that we can work with each other in better ways with cause obviously we do all work very differently and we all have our own strengths. And so it’s been good to just keep us aware of each other.

Peter: Agreed. Totally agreed. So then we wrap up with inspirational quote.

Emily: Yeah. So whoever’s weak it was to share their delighted or disappointed also brings a quote to the table. So that’s usually some kind of good team inspiring quote, or sometimes it’s funny. It just kind of depends on our mood, but, it’s just kind of a great way to wrap it up. It just is a good final end to our meeting.

Peter: Exactly. One of the things that we’ll do is we’ll put the agenda that we use in the show notes, and we’d love to hear from you. We’ll have a link in there. If you want to share sort of what you guys do in terms of your team, what’s worked for you, we don’t have a monopoly on good ideas here. So would love to hear, you know, some things that you guys have tried if you’re listening to this podcast.

But we’ll have the information about sort of our agenda. And then I’m looking forward to another conversation we’re going to have real soon covering more of the tools that we use. So we’re using things like Google Suite, Zoom, you know, those are not too out of the box. Zendesk, we’ve already mentioned that. We have a new phone system, OpenPhone, which I’m very happy with, saving a ton of money, and it’s just seems to work really well.

And of course, Telegram is kind of our instant messaging tool that we have been using for a couple years now. There’s a whole bunch of people that jumped on recently. We may have to find a

Emily: different tool for that. But

Peter: I think all of us try to keep that to our work related.

Emily: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So

Peter: is there anything, anything else you want to add this week, Emily?

Emily: I don’t think so. Just I just have enjoyed this conversation and I hope that other companies can realize that your team can be virtual and can still grow and push each other to be better.

Peter: Appreciate that. I want to thank you personally again for pushing us early on to make the most of our, you know, weekly meetings.

Emily: Oh yeah.

Peter: I think it’s really, like I said, it’s the fabric of who we are now. And I think as a recruiting tool, as we continue to grow, explaining this process, I’ve explained this process to a few people and I think they were shocked they run company that actually did this on a weekly basis. And so that’s kind of interesting. Well, appreciate your time today, Emily. Thank you so much.

We’ll talk

Emily: Thanks to you again

Peter: for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms. Please tell your friends about us and leave us a review so even more people will find out about us. Thanks again. We’ll see you soon.