Episode 308: 9 biz tools I'd buy again
In this episode, Fiona shares several useful tools for creative professionals and entrepreneurs. Some of the tools mentioned include lighting solutions, a book on graphic design, a remote clicker for presentations, a high-quality webcam, an adjustable standing desk, and a wireless microphone for iPhones.Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
The importance of understanding expenses and cash flow
Apple Watch and its limitations
Introduction to nine business tools that the author would buy again
The benefits of an adjustable standing desk for back health
The recommendation of a mini memo board for organizing daily tasks
The importance of good lighting in video content creation
Hiring a videographer or video editor for content editing
The Logitech Spotlight Remote for presentations and workshops
The book "Graphic Design Speak" by Tess McCabe
The Logitech Brio Webcam for high-resolution video calls and recordings
Professional Wireless Lavalier Microphone for iPhone
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
I have found it important for my back and it is something I think forevermore. I will have some standing desks. If you are somebody like me working on a computer a lot of the time, I would invest in a standing desk or like this one. It's a platform that goes on top of my existing desk.
Welcome to episode 308 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today it's a coaching episode and it's one to listen to if you are about to invest in any tool or product for your business, listen to this first, but also if you are somebody who is considering tightening your belt and only wants to buy something that has been verified as worthwhile buying by somebody else. I want to go into that in more detail in a second. Firstly, I want to acknowledge the owners and custodians of the land on which I'm recording this and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging and acknowledged that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's coaching episode.
One of the statistics that I've shared on this podcast and in masterclasses I've run and even in my first book, Passion Purpose Profit is that around about half of all businesses, and this is in Australia, it can be higher and lower depending where you are in the world, will fail in the first three years of operation. A huge reason that they fail is because of cash flow or rather lack of cash flow and lack of understanding of their expenses and where money is going. Today I'm not going to dive into profit and loss and cash flow, although those are very important things that you should be looking at and analyzing regularly. But instead, I wanted to talk about how you're spending your money and which tools are worthwhile spending your money on.
Again, as I say every time I do a podcast that includes products, I'm not getting paid to promote any of these products. Even with these, I have no affiliate links at all. These are just products that I have bought, I have used and I think are good. This whole episode came out of a discussion that I had recently with a client that then led me to reflect on things I have bought that I have not enjoyed and would not buy again. One of those controversial is the Apple Watch. I know that for some people the Apple Watch is mind-blowingly amazing. But for me, against the cost of it and what it does for me, I wouldn't buy it again, I wouldn't buy it until all the apps that I would like to use in it are up to speed and have caught up. For example, I use WhatsApp a lot and you can't use that on an Apple watch.
You can but you have to have third-party workarounds and the best of those I've tried, three is a paid thing. I mean it's only $10 a quarter or something. But I'm like, why am I paying for an app that is free and why can't it just work properly with the Apple Watch? I think the concept of the Apple Watch is great. I think if you have apps that you use regularly for business that are up to speed and have a version for Apple Watch, then that's awesome. If you have incredible eyesight as well, I wear glasses and I know that you can increase the size of things, but I still find it tiny to try and read an email on my watch. My point is I would not buy that again. I know that a lot of people will disagree with me, but I'm standing in my truth, I would not buy an Apple Watch again.
However, the things that I'm going to talk you through now are things I would buy again and if for some reason they broke, I would buy them again. They're things that I've recommended to lots of people over the years and regularly find myself putting into people's Trello boards after coaching and putting links and everything else. I thought today I would share nine business tools that I would happily buy again. If you are looking at your expenses and where you're spending money, trust that the things I'm going to say, if you need them, if you are in a particular line of work where this would come in handy and you have the resources attached to it, then for sure go for them. Some of them are a little more pricey than others, and all of them are useful. In no particular order here are nine tools that I use pretty much every day in my business that I would happily buy again, the first of these is an adjustable standing desk.
I have worked in different places that I've consulted where they've got standing desks. Often they have had an entire desk that moves. What I have is an addition to your existing desk. It's an adjustable standing desk. I'm looking at it now. It's two platforms and they can sit on top of the desk that you have. It's just normal eye level with your computer and everything else. Or you can just use a lever on the side and it will go up to whatever level that you need it to go up to. A lot of people will understand the health benefits of a standing desk, but even with that and even knowing about this, I used to use standing desks as an example, in one of the master classes I used to teach before I went out on my own.
This is like 10 years ago, I was talking about standing desks and I still thought hadn't bought one for myself. For a long time, I worked with a normal L-shaped desk last year because I had three herniated discs in my back and went through an incredible amount of rehab to get back, to be unable to walk comfortably and do my daily walks and just live with my children and all the things that I had been used to doing before that injury occurred. I decided to invest in a standing desk. This one was around about $250 Australian. I have to say that it has been game-changing with my back. I do a lot of calls. If I wasn't using a standing desk, I would be sitting for a long time for at least three days a week.
Yes, you can get up and if you can get up, stand up and do things. I understand that not everybody is in that position, but for me, being able to stand up for every second call. I'll do one call sitting, one call standing, one call sitting, one call standing. Sometimes if I feel like it, I'll just do half an hour of sitting and half an hour standing. Sometimes if I'm feeling like it, I'll just stand for a couple of calls in a row. It has helped so much in terms of strengthening my back. I think what people don't understand is things like herniated discs and a lot of people will have a herniated disc and just not realize it because it hasn't flared up. It's just a matter of time, particularly if you have bad posture and you're sitting at a desk or sitting or standing even at a desk that is not at the right height for you in a retail store or a warehouse or wherever it is that you're working.
Perhaps you're a ceramicist and you're sitting in a chair quite often making and leaning forward and doing so many things that you've got to be careful of your back. I was talking to somebody recently who's a paramedic. They were talking about the back exercises that they have to do to stay strong. I think as you age these are things that are going to become more and more prevalent. For me, having this standing desk, firstly it is white, it goes with my other desk which is white and it doesn't look crazily out of place. The other thing is it's not the whole desk. I've still got room for other things going on, plus the way that it goes up, I think a lot of them are difficult to maneuver.
This is just a lever that you push up. It is very easy, you don't need to put a whole lot of strength into doing it. And it has one platform for my computer and laptop and monitors and then it has another platform underneath for things like an iPad or a keyboard or your mouse or other things that you're keeping on there. I have found it important for my back and it is something I think forevermore. I will have some standing desks. If you are somebody like me working on a computer a lot of the time, I would invest in a standing desk or like this one, it's a platform that goes on top of my existing desk. I bought this from Officeworks, which is a large company here in Australia and we'll link to that in the show notes, which you'll be able to find for this episode over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/308.
That is the first one, the standing desk. The second one, I bought this before I bought the standing desk, which is an adjustable laptop stand. What I mean by this is it's a metal stand and it folds down into, if you imagine almost like a Z shape or a Z shape if you're in the US and you can squish that in, it almost flat and then you can pull it out to as high as you need it to go. I previously to this used to use a stack of books underneath my laptop to make it eye level to do the whole OHNs and make sure my eyes were at a level to the computer and I was not looking up or down in a way that would hurt my spine or my neck.
But I found that the books sometimes would wobble or I just sometimes would also be like I want to use that book and now I can't because it's sitting under my computer. What I got is this adjustable stand, it's quite minimal looking, it's silver, I think you can get them in all sorts of colours. I got it from a large online retailer. We will again put the link in the show notes and it just allows me to put my laptop up into a space where again it is great on eye level, I can adjust it, it's safe, it's not going to slip and it's just been helpful for computer work. I work predominantly with a laptop and then I have a monitor. I'm looking between those two all the time and just making sure that they're both set at a range in which I'm not ruining my back or my neck by looking at them and looking between them as well, which is a big thing.
When I started seeing a physio first after my back, he was like, “Describe your computer area.” This was not my normal physio, this was somebody else in that space and I was just describing it and they were like, “Okay, you're just moving constantly all day long. You're flicking between two screens and you are moving your spine and you're not sitting correctly.” These things are going to happen. You've got to look after that muscle and particularly in your back like looking after all of that. I also can be somebody who slouches when I sit. I've also invested in a good chair, but for now, I'm talking about the laptop stand that it's adjustable. Again, even if you’re not sitting at a desk all day but you have a laptop in your retail store or a desk in your florist or whatever it is, this thing is minimal.
It won't take up a lot of space and it just allows you to put that laptop at the correct height which is then going to prevent you from stooping down or pushing your neck in some weird angle that you don't notice how much you're doing that all day long. Over years of doing that, it can impact your back and your posture. That is number two, the adjustable laptop stand. Number three, I think I may have even done a whole episode just on this one tool and that is the mini memo board. I love whiteboards, it's no secret, and this mini memo board is like a mini whiteboard. I again bought this from Officeworks and we'll link to that in the show notes, but you can buy them from everywhere.
I even had a client make them shout out to Haluna Happy Names, which is a great small business that is run by this wonderful woman Helen. They have meaningful gifts for teachers and students and all sorts of people and they have them in English and Arabic and you can have all sorts of languages put on there to personalize them. But she has a personalized whiteboard, a small whiteboard so you can put people's names on it and everything else and we'll link to that in the show notes as well. You can find out more about that just at halunahappynames.com. But I've even had a client create one because they're so useful to have a small whiteboard on your desk. This one that I have, I don't even know how small it would be.
It would be like, if you put your hands next to each other, it would be about that size. What I do with this is every single day I put in the top three tasks that I need to get done that day and I will clear those things off at the end of the day. And often I will write the top three things for the next day so that when I come into my office those things are there. It's just three things. It's not this gigantic list. I do have long lists in Asana or even in just my diary, but in this, I put the top three things that need to get done so that they're always there. It's written on a whiteboard, you can wipe it off, and you're not wasting paper or other such things.
I've just found it so useful in addition to using it on my actual desk to determine the top three things I have to do. I also have brought it to workshops where I've written a rough agenda for myself and because it's a whiteboard I can just change the time if things are running over. I have also brought it to speaking gigs and I'll just put it on the lectin and if somebody asks a question or raises something that makes me think of something else in my brain, I can just quickly scribble it down. Again, I'm not wasting paper because it's whiteboard, I can wipe it clean. Also, just a side note on any whiteboards, if you use whiteboards and they are getting a bit dirty and you've used a whiteboard cleaner and it doesn't work, what works is toothpaste. I've used this many times get an old toothbrush, get some toothpaste and scrub the white part of the whiteboard and it'll come up fresh and new. There you go. That is the mini memo whiteboard.
The next thing that I will talk about that I couldn't live without or that has been useful in my business is the Unique lighting kit. This is a more recent purchase. I probably bought it two years ago seeing it on Instagram. It's one for anyone who's using video content and particularly small business owners who may not have the resource to always hire professional video videographers to come and do your videos for you. What you can do is get this lighting kit, it is like a box that comes, it's quite heavy, it's not the lightest thing around and you can put your phone into it and you can record. It has all different lighting settings and it's almost like a mini photo room or light room.
You can set it up, it has an extendable pole so you can set it up to have it facing you, facing away from you. You can have it over the top of you. If you're a graphic designer and you're drawing or you want to video your hands or you're an interior designer and you're putting together tiles and swatches and things, or you are a wedding cake designer and you are decorating things or biscuits or whatever it is and you want to have that camera overhead, this can help. It's got quite a sturdy box at the bottom and then you pull the pole up and you can make it as taller or as short as you'd like and then you can put your camera in, your phone in, and utilize the camera on your phone along with three or four different lighting settings so that you could just choose one of them and be like, that's the style and that's the lighting that we use every time we do one of these overhead videos.
Again, you may well go, I can't afford somebody to come in and take those videos, but I would like to then pay a videographer or a video editor to edit all this great content that I've made into reels or TikToks or YouTube videos or explainer videos for your product detail pages. A tool like this, I think it's about $80 Australian and I have used it so many times. I've just found it useful. I have to say that my remote was not working perfectly the first time I got it. I contacted the company, I did get a replacement remote because you can Bluetooth it and then take photos further away so you're not right next to the product or having to touch your phone.
However, it took months to get that replacement. Not without its fault, but I'm sure that that doesn't happen to everybody. I've probably just got a dodgy remote scent. That is the Uniq lighting kit and will link to that in the show notes as well. The next thing that I want to highlight is a gorgeous little book by the wonderful Tess McCabe. If you are in Australia and you're creative, you may well know who Tess McCabe is. She is a designer, marketer, brand person, author, and publisher. One of those people that gets a lot done. she wrote a book a little while ago now called Graphic Design Speak and it's a valuable tool for anyone who is not a graphic designer and doesn't necessarily understand when you are designing a flyer, which part is the key message and what are all the different parts of an advertisement call.
Also things like why you need CMYK versus RGB for colour palettes and also a bunch of useful specs. I find this something that is not, I don't know why it's just not known enough, I feel like if you went to design something that's a four, I don't know if that many people would know the actual specs of an A4 piece of paper or likewise, if you're thinking, I want this flyer for all of these little seats and I want to brief my graphic designer and I have no idea what size that is. Or even if you're doing it yourself on Canva that you know how to resize it and which size should be where. It goes into all sorts of things like that as well as colour palettes, briefing a graphic designer, and many other things, it's a cute little book and you can find it everywhere.
You can find it on the major e-commerce websites where you get books, but you can also just check out Tess McCabe and we'll link to all of that in the show notes. Again, the book is called Graphic Design Speak. Tips, advice and Jargon Defined for Non-Graphic Designers. Another great tool and this one looks nice as well. Graphic Design Speak also looks nice, but this one in terms of tech tools looks quite nice. A lot of these particular product categories I'm about to talk about don't look so nice. This is the Logitech Spotlight Remote. I bought this, I think 2016 or 2017, I'm not sure, but it was a roundabout then and it is gold. I bought the gold one. But you can have gold, silver, rose gold, and black. It is a clicker, for anyone who does presentations or workshops, you can use it on Zoom.
It's not like you have to be physically doing these classes, but it allows you to spotlight certain things in your presentation. A normal clicker, a remote that you use to present, we'll have backwards, and forwards, and you can pause, but that's about it. Whereas this clicker allows you to spotlight, let’s say you're showing a diagram and you want to show one particular part of that, you can use the spotlight which will then only show that part of the screen. The other thing that's good about it is that it vibrates in your hand for whatever period you've put on it. Let's say you're doing a masterclass and you've got 45 minutes and you want to know when you're at the half-hour mark without having to watch your phone or watch the clock or not all places that you'll present will have a stage that has a big clock on the side
This will vibrate in your hand at whatever time you've locked into it. It doesn't have to be exactly 15 minutes or 30 minutes. You can put in a customized time and it will vibrate in your hand. I think as somebody who has presented at a lot of different events and also facilitated panels, sometimes it can be difficult to see what the time is without looking at your phone or your Apple Watch. I forgot that's a good use of your Apple Watch. But also any watch would do that. you'll see sometimes people will put their phone on a table in a panel discussion and you can see that the time is going, but even then sometimes they can accidentally set it off and you've got an alarm going off on stage.
Recently I was doing a panel and they did have a big clock but they had it at the very side of the panel, not where I was looking inward on the panel and to see the clock I had to look to the other side. Having a clicker or something like that that can tell you, “Hey you're almost at the point at which you need to finish up” is super helpful. Again, that is the Logitech Spotlight Remote that is pricier than standard remotes. I've used it for years and I just think it is awesome. They also update their technology you're often having to, not having to but updating it. I don't know if they're bringing out new parts of it that you could use on an old remote. Don't quote me, I’m not sure, but I know that it is quite often every couple of months you'll have an update to that clicker.
That's the Logitech Spotlight Remote. Another thing that I love about Logitech is the Logitech Brio Webcam. Again, this is a little pricier than other webcams. I think I paid about $250. But as somebody who is on Zoom all day long and so many of us are now, even if you work in an office or a physical location, quite often you'll have meetings that are video. This is a cute little camera, it clicks on and it just clasps on like it's got a little clipper at the back to anything that you are using. I have it on my monitor, you could put it onto a laptop, or a desktop, you could probably just put it on my iPad as well.
It has a USB connection so you need to plug it into something. But from there the actual video resolution is incredible. I will sometimes show my clients, “Okay, this is the Logitech Brio that I'm using and then let me just show you the normal camera that comes with my laptop.” And it's like opposites. even if you are not necessarily doing a lot of Zoom calls, perhaps you are thinking about launching a course and you want to be able to just film yourself directly to the camera or maybe you are creating tutorials for your staff in terms of onboarding or systems and processes and you have your little face in the corner of the screen, then it helps to have a camera that looks professional and I think it makes everyone look good. I have used that probably for the last year and a half.
I have to say I bought this camera years ago, probably three years ago, and it was only when one of my clients, the lovely Andrew Mitchell from Mr Mitchell and The Design Coach, was using it and I said, “You always look pretty good Andrew, but you're looking even better at the moment.” And he said, “I'm using the logic camera that you suggested.” I was like, “Okay, time to get my camera out.” I had not put it on because I had thought there would be a whole lot of setup. There's barely any, you just take it out of the box, clip it, USB in and there you go. It's also easy to travel with. It is very small. It comes in a pouch that is soft and keeps it all safe. It comes with a wipe so you can wipe the camera, make sure it looks good at all times.
I think there are a couple of different lighting options on it and I think I just have the basic one and it works well. That is the Logitech Brio Webcam and will link to that in the show notes as well. I have gone through the mini memo board, the Logitech Spotlight Remote, the Uniq lighting kit, the adjustable laptop stand Graphic Design Speak, the book by Tess McCabe, the Logitech Brio Webcam, and the adjustable standing desk. The last thing that I wanted to mention, and this is something definitely if you are recording videos and doing more of that stuff on your phone in particular, this is a helpful tool. I'm gonna mispronounce this probably, but this is the Professional Wireless Lavalier Microphone for iPhone. It's like a super mini microphone and it has a little clip so you can just clip it on like a lapel mic.
But the other super cool thing is that you can plug part of it straight into your iPhone or your iPad and it's like a Bluetooth microphone. Let's say you are a baker, you can put the lapel mic onto your apron or whatever you're wearing that day. You can put your phone over onto the other side of the room and you can film yourself but have great audio and you don't have to worry about wires and flicking different things in. You just have the lapel mic on your body or on your shirt or your apron. And you have this little part of it that comes with it and you just put that into where you charge your iPhone. It'll just instantly pair. You don't have to download software, you don't have to do anything else, it's just right there.
Another thing is if you were recording podcasts and you were doing that on your phone, but you wanted to film as well, you had like a visual component for the podcast, you could again set up your phone on a tripod or something else to record and have you talking and you don't have to be right next to the phone to be able to have good audio. I know that a lot of people will use just basic earphones that come with their phone or anything else, but then you've got wires and you've got other stuff attached. Also, I know with EarPods, I have EarPods from Apple, they're amazing, and I love them. I should have also included them in this. However, they don't always perfectly work. Sometimes noise can drop out. Also, things like earrings can tap on your EarPods and cause extra noise in the background that you don't realize until afterwards when you're listening to the recording.
Likewise, with the old school Apple headphones with the wires, that little part where you speak into, if that scratches against any clothing that will create sound on a recording. I used to always wonder what that sound was when I was listening to other people's podcasts. I mean it's happened on our podcast too. I will stop people sometimes and be like, something is tapping your earphones. But sometimes you don’t know what it is when you're listening to podcasts and a tapping sound or a scratching, is because the microphone part of people's earphones is touching the material of the top or whatever they're wearing, especially if it's like a bully top or something knitted, that can usually be an issue.
If you're looking for something that will help you have great audio and also take out background noise like wind or other stuff that is coming in, perhaps if you're recording this at the beach or outside where you're always trying to like let go of that sound of nature, then this is for you. Again, that is called the Professional Wireless Lavalier Microphone for iPhone. And I just got this again from a large online retailer. I think it was about $50 Australian. I am going to use this. I've used it to test it, but I haven't used it for this podcast or anything else like that. But I am going to test this when I travel. I'm coming up to travel in the US and Europe soon, and I want to be able to test a couple of recordings of potential things that I might have an idea for.
I want to just record a podcast without having to bring a whole microphone and all the setup and everything else. As long as it's charged, I can record on the go with great audio, just using my phone. It's tiny, it's small. It's like the size of a finger or even your thumb. I guess it depends on how big your hands are, but it's around about that size. It's small and I'm excited to use it and see and who knows, maybe I will do a podcast episode from there, recording on my phone using this microphone and see if anyone notices the difference. That is it for today. Running through nine things that I would buy again in my business that I think are useful. And I did mention the one thing, the Apple Watch that I wouldn't buy.
It is just an expensive find my phone tool, but it has other purposes, but in terms of just being a watch, it's a very expensive version of a watch. Until Apple or until all the apps that I use, it's not Apple's fault, but until a lot of the apps that I use bring a version out that works well with an Apple Watch, I definitely wouldn't buy that again. But all the other things I mentioned today, I would buy. If you want links to any of those, you can find that at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/308. Thank you so much for reading.
