Episode 331: Why I Moved to Milanote
In this episode, Fiona shares a tool called Milanote, a drag-and-drop project management software. Fiona discusses its features, advantages, and how it can be beneficial for visual learners and creative professionals. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Importance of accountability in completing the course
Introduction to Milanote as a project management software tool
Comparison with other popular project management tools
Overview of Milanote's features
Pricing options and upgrade considerations for Milanote
Benefits of Milanote
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 331 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today it is a quick tip and I'm sharing a tool. I don't want to say I've found out because I've known about it for years because a contact of mine years ago used to work for them, but I'd never looked at it deeply and it is good. Before we get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of this beautiful land in which I record this podcast and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that we are kicking off Marketing for Your Small Business course and coaching program that kicks off at the end of August. If you are interested in being part of that, it helps you understand marketing in such a deeper way, understanding your brand as well, your brand messages, how to get them out into the marketplace and which channels you should use, the frequency of the content, how to come up with your content, all of that stuff. If you are keen to not just buy the course, but finish the course, then a course in a coaching program is important. It's an accountability group. It makes sure that you don't just buy a course and leave it there like 80 or 90% of people do. We meet once a week for nine weeks consecutively, and at the end of that, you go through each module each week, and at the end of that, you can choose to create your marketing plan and share it with everybody else in the group on a live call.
If you're keen to understand more about that and sign up, you can find all the information at marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com. If you already own the course, look out for an email because you'll be given a very affordable upgrade offer. We've had many people who have done this course numerous times and done the coaching program because they want to have a refresher every year. If you're looking to make sure 2024, your marketing plan is incredible, then this is the perfect time to do it. Again, just go to marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com if you need to know everything. Let's get into today's episode.
As I said at the start, I am new to this platform, new in terms of being a user, I am a member now. But I had known about this platform years ago. One of the people I was in contact with was working for them. This platform is originally from the US and they were launching into Australia, and somebody I know was working there. Talking about it a bit, but I'd looked at it then and I was like, “I don't understand this.” I'm just going to stick with Asana and Trello and the other platforms that I've been using. What is the platform? The platform is Milanote and I have to do a shout-out to Juliet Miranda Rowe, who's an incredible illustrator and animator and just all round creative. She's also in group coaching and she showed some stuff that she does on Milanote, and the rest of the group, including myself, are like, “Wow, that is amazing.”
I also want to point out I'm not sponsored by Milanote. If Milanote’s keen to sponsor me though, get in touch because I've been telling everybody about this platform ever since Juliette showed us. What is Milanote? It's like a drag-and-drop project management software tool. There are so many project management software tools out there. There is Trello, Asana, those are the two that I've used mostly my whole career. There is Notion, Monday, there are just a million of them available, and it can be difficult to figure out which one you love. I have clients who use ClickUp. I have clients who use Trello. I have clients who have never used anything. Milanote is one of the best because of the scrolling functionality and also because you are not limited to or restricted to the visual creations that you can create under each board.
Let's say with Asana, which I have used for years and years and years, and got ripped off by Asana recently. I am off the Asana train, which is something I never ever thought I would do. But bad customer service when it was absolutely necessary. A lot of these particularly older ones like Trello and Asana, you can create boards, you can create lists, you can move things around, you can create calendars if you upgrade, you can create portfolios and CRMs that are quite advanced. You can create workflows and timelines and a whole bunch of things, like Gantt charts. All of them have the same functionality. Although what I love about Milanote is it's made for visual people. I'm a visual learner, I'm a creative person, and I love the way that you can put all sorts of things in from images, to comments.
There's just so much that you can build with it without it becoming overwhelming. I have seen inside of a bunch of my clients Notion, ClickUp and Monday, and I do think that ClickUp is quite good as well. However, ClickUp can easily become overwhelming because you are also scrolling down, not across the screen, but every time you want to do something new, you can create a whole new page and then you end up with like 50 million on the side and you're not really sure which ones which. With Milanote, you're creating boards, and within each board, you can create a series, you can create tables lists to-do lists. You can upload PDFs and contracts and all sorts of things. For example, if I'm an architect, I could have one board per house that I'm working on, and at the start, I could upload the PDF of the signed contract, I could upload a whole bunch of our statement of work, our timeline, and then I can move it along, add a mood board, then move it along.
Again, when I'm saying move it along, you're just literally scrolling horizontally across the page. Then you could have inputs from your clients, you could then be like, this is stage one, this is in development, and everything is just in the same place without it being a series of like hundreds of cards that you have to go into each one separately as per Trello or in Asana. I love Milanote. From what I have created so far in Milanote has been a thorough content calendar and marketing plan, and it's something that I'm even looking into creating and changing Marketing for Your Small Business, the way that we present the plan at the end of Marketing for Your Small Business, I will be showing whoever's joining this current cohort of course and coaching program that kicks off at the end of this month, I'll be showing them inside our Milanote how we create it, what we've done.
We will be re-recording part of Marketing for Your Small Business next year. If you already own the course, don't worry, you'll get access to all of this because I just think it is so good that I would love everybody to get on board to start using it for their marketing plan, their campaigns, and everything else. I'm using it for marketing in the business, and it's easy to see at glance all the podcast episodes, how those overlap and strategies are aligned, Instagram posts, TikToks, Reels, and Sunday emails can just easily see everything at a glance. I am also using it for the book, the second book that I've just written. Again, putting everything in there from the original book proposal, the contract that was signed, the payment dates for the advance through to the chapter outline, all of the design ideas, the first design concepts, the feedback on the design concept, like all of it, it's exciting to be able to be put all the permissions information, all the permissions letters, everything in one spot.
I have been pretty organized with this in the past, just using a Google Sheet, but I think that this is just even better and it's visually exciting. A Google Sheet is not that visually exciting to be real, I think this is just awesome. I'm also using it for budgets and to create a budget that I can see inside there. There are just endless possibilities. Plus the templates in there are free. One thing that annoys me about Trello is that they have some incredible templates, but often you have to pay to upgrade to the paid version of Trello in order to access those. With Milanote, you don't have to pay to upgrade to access templates. The only issue with Milanote is if you are in the free version unless you're referring a lot of people because with each referral you'll get extra space.
But if you are just normally on the paid version and you haven't referred anyone, then I think you have a certain amount of cards that you can use. I found that when I created our marketing plan and strategy, documentation that I was using all of those cards pretty quickly, which is why I upgraded it is $9 US a month for the year. I've just upgraded as one user myself and my OBM can log in together. If someone's from Milanote, it's like, “You should be on a team plan”, but I'm a savvy business owner. I just wanted to point it out. If you are somebody who's looking to potentially change your project management software systems or you've never used one and you've heard all this information about Asana, Trello, Monday, Notion, and ClickUp.
I would urge you to also have a look at Milanote, particularly if you are like me and you're very visual in your learning, or you are in an industry that is very visual. For example, architecture, interior design, landscape design, branding, graphics, and all of that, it is just a useful tool to be able to show your clients all the things in one continuous scroll horizontally rather than back and forth in emails and having to go through things or Dropbox links. You can still have your Dropbox links in there. It just tidies everything up. I can't say enough about it. I wish that I had looked into it when my friend was working there because maybe I'd be a great user by now. But I also think that maybe in that time, which is probably three or four years now that they have upgraded and made so many changes and I just find it super useful to use.
That is it for today's episode. It's just using the tool Milanote. A massive shout out to Juliet Miranda Rowe who informed me and the rest of the people in Group Coaching of just how awesome this platform is and how great it can be. Again, if anyone from Milanote is reading, maybe get in touch with Juliet Miranda Rowe. She is out there being an ambassador and an advocate for this business. That is it for today's episode. If you want to link to Milanote and check everything out or just want to listen to this or watch it in text format, you can find that over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/331. Just a reminder, again, if you're keen to be part of the Marketing for Your Small Business course and coaching program that kicks off at the end of this month, you can find all the information over at marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com. If you've got any questions, you can just email us at hello@mydailybusiness.com. Thanks for reading. See you next time. Bye.
