Speaker 1: At Dotton Company, we believe that all agencies deserve amazing account managers, and that all of those account managers deserve to be supported, encouraged, and loved on. That's why we started CAM Community, a membership only for account managers. And inside, you'll gain access to the exact training we use to train our own client-facing account managers, but also access to all of our SOPs, processes, and live trainings on a variety of topics. If you're an account manager, this is the place you've been waiting for. Learn more at dot and company.co forward slash CAM Community. Welcome back to another episode of the Happy Clients podcast. Today, we are giving you another free sneak peek into CAM Community, our membership for account managers. So we realized that, yes, our team is amazing, but we also have the support of 30 plus account managers, all working under one roof, one virtual roof, that is. And we get to share so many resources and trainings and mentorship amongst all of us. So we said, why don't we open up the doors to other account managers inside other agencies? So this membership is only for account managers, but today we are giving you a sneak peek into one of the live trainings that we do. We do one to two a week, they're 15 minutes, and they're very efficient, quick snippets for account management. So today I actually did this one inside the community, it is called tips for maintaining a healthy work-life balance. So we're talking all about stress-free client management. I can't wait for you to share this with your team, listen in yourself, and get a sneak peek into the training that we're doing inside CAM Community. Let's get into it.

Speaker 2: Welcome to the Happy Clients podcast, brought to you by dot and company. Whether you're a virtual assistant, an agency owner, or a client-facing account manager, we all deal with client. Lucky for you, client management is what we do best. Now, let's dig in, that CAM life, and have some fun along the way. Here's to Happy Clients.

Speaker 1: So today we are going to be talking about stress-free client management. And this is something that I am passionate about because I don't think that anyone should be overly stressed. And I mean, there's things that come up day-to-day that might cause us to be a little bit stressed. But one of my old bosses way back in the day told me, she's like, Taylor, we are in marketing, we're not saving babies, so put that into perspective when you're getting so stressed out. And I was like, yeah, that's a good one to remind myself. But when it comes to our role, working remotely, working from home, I think sometimes we get in a little bit of a rut, or maybe we just internalize things a little bit too much. So I think it's always a good reminder to maybe just set yourself up for success and kind of chill out a little bit. So I'm just gonna share my screen in a sec here. So yes, we are going to be talking about some tips for maintaining a healthy work-life balance. And I think all of us have struggled with this at some point in our careers, myself included. So hopefully some of these tips are just maybe a reminder for you as you go about your day. So let's firstly identify what does stress-free mean to you? Because this looks different for every single one of us on this call, every single one of us in this job. So I want you to take out a little piece of paper. And for about 30 seconds, write down three different things that pop in your mind. They can be little, they can be drinking your coffee in the morning, it can be taking a lunch break walk, like write down three things that when I say stress-free, whatever comes to mind, write those down. Did I give you all enough time? And if anyone wants to share, feel free, drop it in the chat. But I think it's just a good reminder because for me, what stress-free looks like probably is different for Christina or Amelia or Katie. And I think it's just important to really identify what that looks like for you. So today we're gonna talk about some hacks to productivity that will allow you to feel 10 times more productive. I think over the last four years, especially since starting DOT, this has been something that we've really focused on and that I myself have personally tried to figure out the best way to feel productive. And I think I've got some good tips for you guys. And then some Slack statuses that you guys can steal and use within your day-to-day, which is super fun. So this is just a reminder, and I think it's really important, maybe even coming from me, but just a reminder that it's totally okay to not have your Slack status green every waking minute and it's okay to take an unplugged lunch break. It's okay to turn off your computer at the end of the day and actually turn off. It's okay to not have Slack and email notifications on your phone. I personally turn these off most of the time. I don't have a sauna on my phone because it's too distracting. And I just don't want that in my life. It's okay to work out during the day or to work late or work early so that you can have a shorter day tomorrow. And it's okay to sit there and have a coffee and not be checking your email at the same time or sit down and take 10 minutes and read a book. And it's also okay to set a Slack status so that people know what you're doing. And I know some of us do this at DOT, but it's sometimes a reminder to set the intention, which we're going to get into. So we already kind of talked about what a stress-free environment looks like to you, but here is tip number one. So when I was preparing this presentation on March 1st, I had it in my calendar, prep presentation for community. So I was like, you know what? This is a perfect time for me to literally just take a screenshot of my calendar for the day and show you guys what this looks like for me. So what I do is I have my normal calendar. So you can see here, this is like my Google calendar, but then I have another one set up for planning, I call it. So this isn't going to block me on Calendly. Nobody can see that I'm busy, but it's more when I'm looking at what I need to do for the day, I can quickly add in how long things are going to take me. So for example, I gave myself 30 minutes to prep for this presentation. It ended up taking a lot longer, but it was in there in my calendar for 30 minutes. I have any like specific meetings that were in my calendar that are showing up, but it really helps to time block. I know we talk about this a lot, but this is just a quick visual of how this actually looks in my day to day. So what I recommend, and this is what I do, is I sit down at the beginning of my working day and I plan first. So I'm not looking at my Asana inbox first or my emails or my Slack. I'm looking at what are my priorities for the day. I'm plugging them into my calendar. I actually do this weekly, so I can see all my major tasks and projects that I need to do. I plan it in my planning calendar. I put it in my calendar. So then I know, okay, I've given myself an hour to work on my podcast kit for training, or I need to read this book before we're interviewing him for our podcast. So I know that I've allocated a certain amount of time, and I actually do that first before checking notifications. So that is super helpful and it makes me way more productive. So tip number two, and I know I talk about this all the time, but limit distractions. I don't know how many times I've seen people in the middle of a Zoom call, and then they're off doing something else or off checking text messages or Instagram. It's really important to limit your distractions. But I think for all of us, we get so distracted if we're trying to do something for too long. So sometimes I'll just put a 10-minute timer on my phone if I'm doing something simple. Maybe it's emptying my email inbox. It shouldn't take me more than 10 minutes. So I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna get this done as quickly as possible. So you can actually use your phone or if you have toggle on your phone, you can put the focus Pomodoro on there as well. But you can also do it on the desktop version, I think as well, but I just use my phone because it's like separate. So limit those distractions, like pause everything from Slack so that it's not dinging, it's not bouncing, it's not, you know, everywhere. Like I just, I think limiting your actual distractions is so important when it comes to productivity. Step number three is delegate. So once I sit down and I plan out all of the things that I need to do in my planning calendar, the second thing I do is delegate. So I might be looking at things like, oh, I need to do that. It's gonna take me about 20 minutes, but really I just actually need to delegate that to someone else. So what I do is I sit down and I'll say, okay, of these 10 tasks that I have in my asana for today, actually two of them need to go to, one needs to go to Jill, one needs to go to Audrey, for example. So I'll quickly send them a note and say like, hey, can you let me know if you can handle this for me? Or can you guys take care of this and get back to me? So always look for things that you're delegating to someone else. And maybe it's a media buyer. Maybe it's you actually just have to send the quick brief over to the copywriter and then they're gonna take it from there. But kind of prioritizing what you need to delegate will help you be way more productive and get those things off of your list right away. And then you feel like you are being way more productive. And then tip number four is set your intentions. Like I said, at the beginning, as a reminder, it is okay to be working on something in a deep focus mindset. I know Amelia actually adds this all the time at dot like fire emoji, right? Like she's working hard on something. And that's awesome. I'm like, wow, good for you. Focus time, her notifications are off. I know she's working hard on something. She's not gonna get back to me. So what I did was I put together a bunch of different Slack statuses, I think we call them, that you guys can screenshot, steal these, use them inside of your agencies when you are doing something. So for example, when you're taking a break, here's some ideas of Slack statuses that you can use. Just pop it in 30 minutes. It shows when you're gonna be back, but then at least say you're out to lunch, you can feel like you can be off for lunch because you've set that intention. If you are focused, like I said, Amelia always does the fire emoji, love that. These are some things that you could actually use when you're focused. So maybe like busy crushing goals, please stand by. And it shows like we'll be back in 30 minutes or status changes in 30 minutes or 60 minutes or whatever. When you're in a meeting, so I don't know about you, but when I'm in a meeting, I don't wanna feel like people are pinging me and they expect me to get back to them just because my status is green on Slack. So if you're in a meeting, it'd be cool to just pop in a little notification, be right back in a meeting, right? Just something really, really simple. And maybe you're signing off for the night. It's five o'clock. You're like, listen, I gotta go to dinner. My kids are wanting me, whatever that looks like. Put a notification so that everyone knows you're gone. Like don't expect me to respond at 7.30 at night because I'm offline. Katie is really good at this because her kids are home and she's feeding them supper or whatever that looks like. She'll generally put like kid time, which is awesome, right? We all know, okay, she's gone for the night. She's not gonna get back to me till tomorrow. So that's such a great reminder. Or my favorite, maybe you're on vacation. So this is really awesome so that everyone knows that you are gone, you are on vacation. So I am de-stressing. I am on my vacation. That is so, so well-deserved. So some key takeaways here. A quick reminder of what a stress-free environment looks like to you. So even Jen posted in the community today that she's starting her morning with an intention. I love that. I think journaling is so important. So maybe every morning you could journal and say, I'm gonna have a stress-free day and this is what I'm gonna do. Just a reminder, it's okay to take breaks. It's important to take breaks. You have to force yourself to do that, especially when you're working from home. Number three is plan, prioritize, limit your distractions, delegate, and set your intentions so that everyone knows what you are up to and that you don't have to feel one bit bad about taking a break. And last but not least, relax. You're doing a great job. Not saving babies here, although it feels like it some days. Just remember that you're doing an amazing job and to relax throughout your day.

Speaker 2: Here's to happy clients.