May 19, 2022 • 29 mins
In this excellent podcast episode we welcome Martin Evans from Orata to the hotseat. We get a chance to hear how Martin started out with Podio and how he took the plunge and created his own Podio consultancy.
Martin's is a great story, and it's a common one we see with Podio - people who love the tool creating a business helping people get the most out of such a powerful platform.
Show Links:
Email martin on martin@orata.io
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Narrator (00:01):
You're watching another supercharged masterclass
with Jordan, Samuel Fleming youropportunity to learn the ins and
outs of Podio design anddevelopment from one of the top
Podio partners in the world,
Jordan Fleming (00:14):
everybody, and welcome to this week's episode
of supercharged, I'm your host,Jordan Fleming here to talk all
about the power of workflow andautomation when your business is
powered by Podio. Well, today'sepisode features a poor partner,
Martin Evans, Martin is based inthe UK, he got a lot of clients
(00:36):
in us, though, particularlyaround real estate in history.
And it's my first time getting achance to talk to Martin. And it
was really fun to to get to knowhim get to understand how he
sort of got into Podio talk abit about how we then kind of
moved on into being more of aPodio consultant Now does that
(00:58):
full time, which is a fantasticstory, I always love to hear
from newer Podio partners, abouthow they're getting into it,
what they're working on how theysee kind of Podio, where it's
going, and how they'reintegrating it into their life
as a business. And that's, youknow, one of the really fun
things about this podcast,Martin has got a great story.
(01:18):
He's got a, you know, real sortof up and coming kind of journey
in Podio, which I love. And hereally is doing a great job. You
know, it's fantastic to see himactive on the Citrix PWA. And
proc foo. workspace is afantastic to see him working
(01:38):
with people and just a reallyfun story. And I'm hopefully
going to be meeting Martin inthe in the flesh in our upcoming
Podio partner meet up with whichwe do in Europe, we used to do
in Europe every year, and thenCOVID hit us. But we're back to
that. So in September of 2022,which will date this podcast if
(02:01):
you're listening to this in2023. But we will be meeting up
as a group of Podio partners,and I'm gonna really look
forward to meeting Martin there.
So let's dive right in to thepodcast.
Listen, Martin, first of allpodcasts. Why don't you tell me
(02:23):
just a little bit about sort ofhow you got into Podio. And more
importantly, then how youtransitioned or decided to
transition into working withother people on their Podio and
becoming a Podio. Partner.
Unknown (02:36):
And thanks, Jordan, thanks for having me. Yeah, I
originally got started because Istarted working for a a
landlord, basically, that hadproperties. And he wanted to
systemize because they were allover the place. And he wanted
some kind of feature where hehad everything in one place. So
we were looking at differentoptions. And a lot of people had
(03:00):
mentioned Podio. So he investedin the UK, but was also a member
of a US wholesaling group. Andthey were using Podio as well.
So that's how he kind of got toknow Podio. So I, I've always
kind of been interested inlearning new things. And I
thought, Okay, this sounds likequite cool challenge. So I got
(03:23):
started using Podio. Now, and itwas it was really difficult at
first. But it's okay. Yeah,there's quite a large learning
curve to it. So it's, I guess,it took me maybe four hours to
do the basic basic things andfigure everything out and that
(03:47):
type of thing, but but the wholetime, I ended up staying up till
about six o'clock in the morningsometimes because I was like,
No, before I'm going to bed. I'mgetting this finished. Oh,
that's
Jordan Fleming (03:58):
a dangerous game to play. All right.
Unknown (04:01):
Yeah. So there was a lot of trial and error, and also
a lot of help from the guys inthe forum. So I definitely think
without you know, the likes ofDamian row Gary Reiner.
Jordan Fleming (04:18):
everybody's favourite Rainer? Yeah,
Unknown (04:21):
yeah. I mean, posting questions in the forum, right
when I was starting, was souseful for me because I don't.
Yeah, and I don't have any codeand coding background. So I
ended up creating kind of acheat sheet for myself where I'd
be tight copy and paste in inthe code, and then explaining
(04:42):
what it does at the top. So thatwas quite helpful when I was
first started. Yeah, anddefinitely the forum was really
helpful. I don't think I wouldhave been able to figure it out
myself without the help of theforum. Because the isn't
actually that muchdocumentation. Do you know how
to do these things? I don'tthink so. Yeah. Oh, you
Jordan Fleming (05:04):
should have seen what it was like when it first
when, when globey flow firstlaunched. And it was called
Podio flow at that point.
Andreas called it Podio flow.
But then Citrix said no.
Weirdly, then they bought globeyflow and didn't bother just
using Podio. Flow is the name,which makes no much more sense.
(05:24):
But yeah, well, I mean, when itfirst launched, there was really
no documentation. And, you know,it didn't have things like if an
end blocks, so you couldn't donested sort of processes, you
had to daisy chain ones flowstogether. Because you didn't
(05:52):
have that kind of capability.
And you were limited at you,when you first I was telling us
to some partners, like we had apoll, a partner, group podcast,
we recorded the other day. And,and because I was aside from jaw
aside from Seth, I'm one of theolder of the partners. So back
(06:15):
then, the plan you bought forglobey flow limited, not only
how many flows, how many actionsper month, but how many flows
you're allowed to have as well,which meant that suddenly you
had to make decisions, like, doI want to do this flow that
simply adds a date field, it'sgonna take up the valuable, you
(06:38):
know, one, one hundreds of myflow allegations just for that.
So yours back in the day, man,you're, you're, you're you're,
you're somewhat blessed. So tellme, you're working. I mean, it
now it makes sense when you saidproperty, property management is
not something that Podio isreally good at. I'm a huge
football fan, but wholesalingthe massive. So you're working
(07:03):
for that company, and then youwere a you, you know, you
decided to start building Podiofor other people. And do all
that, how did that that kind oftransition go from being your
own, you know, building kind of,for one company one purpose to
having to understand otherpeople's processes, and work
(07:25):
around how they want to work?
What was that transition likefor you?
Unknown (07:29):
Um, so, I mean, I was loving Podio, like I, at the
time, I was thinking, if I couldjust drop everything and just do
Podio full time, that would beamazing. So I started
advertising, my services. And Igot, I was surprised, like how
(07:49):
quickly people started reachingout to me. The first one, the
first client I ever had, hereached out to me, and I
thought, that seems prettysimple. So as like, 50 $50.
Cool, let's do it. And untilthis day, it's still the
hardest, hardest class I've everhad 50 bucks. And it probably
(08:15):
took me about eight hours plusof figuring it out. And then in
the end, I still couldn't do it.
And I had to reach out to one ofthe other Podio partners to do
it for me, so that it was it waskind of a rocky start at the
beginning. But, but since then,it's been going great. And I
think what helped me a lot is,so I'm not the kind of a shy
(08:36):
person. And I think I'm quitegood at understanding what
people want. So the the kind of,you know, process of speaking to
the client and understandingtheir project, and that I enjoy
that. And I really enjoy thebuilding out side of things as
well. So at the moment, it's alot of a lot of wholesale that
(09:00):
I'm doing. I guess a lot ofpeople are start with wholesale
whole working with wholesalers.
But I've done other few otherprojects with UK based
architects, I guess that's thebiggest system I've built. It
was a an architect that was justusing Excel sheets and wanted to
(09:24):
change from Yeah, their Excelsheets. And they posted on
Facebook, they were looking forsome kind of CRM and I said, Oh,
I can give you a tour of Podioif you if you like and we ended
up working together. And yeah,I've built quite a big system
for them integrated smartphoneas well of course and they're
(09:45):
loving it. So yeah, and now nowI'm kind of at the point where I
have a lot of people come intome but it's that that building
point, which I would love to askyou like how you went from, you
know, being a one man by And tokind of get in other people
like, how you went about thatprocess?
Jordan Fleming (10:05):
Hey, are you using Podio to manage your real
estate investment business?
Wait, click the link to find outwhy 1000s of real estate
investment professionals areusing Podio plus smartphone to
make more calls, send more textand close more deals. Click the
link. Well, I mean, I've hadvarious businesses for the past
17 years now or so, ish. I'venever really been employed. I
(10:28):
just couldn't, I never did that.
Um, I mean, the truth of thematter is that there's never a
right time to start employingpeople. There's never a right
time, because it's all you know,sooner or later, the moment you
employ someone, your cash flowis gonna suffer, like, and
you're gonna just be like, Ah,shit, I gotta pay these people
(10:48):
in, and I don't have any moremoney. But, you know, I mean,
just probably exactly whatyou've been doing, you know, you
just start to you out you you,you do one thing, and that leads
to another and and leads toanother and you get enough
momentum that you find I foundthat was a tipping point, where,
because you have to do sales,but you got to do work. And so
(11:11):
like, the first step I did was,I was drowning a little, quite
honestly, this is long time agonow. But and because I was
drowning with the I had to dosales to get the new projects
coming in. But I also had to dothe building bit. And ah, and so
what I ended up doing this, Iended up breaking my day up into
(11:33):
two and three, my week, my week,Tuesdays and Thursdays, I did
sales only, I dedicated it. AndMonday was his Fridays, I did
work only and, and I would nottake meetings on Monday,
Wednesdays and Fridays, ifsomeone wanted to meet me, I'm
even a new client. No, Tuesdaysand Thursdays can meet this
week, we'll do next week. But Iwas really disciplined about
(11:54):
that, because I needed tobalance that. And then I finally
got to the point where it'slike, okay, now I need someone
to just be able to execute on,you know, execute these things,
the challenge you have, as youstart to build that in Podio is
finding good people who know howto build Podio is really hard.
(12:17):
Like, it's really hard to findgood people, we've been lucky.
You know, we've been lucky withour team in game changers. But
finding, you know, you end uphaving to either find just
really good people and teachthem or be really lucky and find
someone who knows Podio Yeah,you know, the other thing is
(12:41):
move as quickly as you can, tosome sort of retained model is
my advice. I know Pete Petecough from future solutions may
argue with me on this one. But,but you know what, there's
nothing that beats retainedrecurring revenue, in order to
build up a business and havecash flow that supports bringing
(13:02):
new people on. And so, you know,like, for instance, we have
support contracts that rangefrom 299 a month to to 2500 a
month, right, and their monthly,you know, and each one of those
has a certain amount of hoursdedicated to it a certain SLA
response, time, prioritisation,etc, you know, the more you pay,
(13:23):
obviously, the more you know,the more you get, and the more
crucial things are. But thosesorts of arrangements mean that
you can lay in a foundationalbase of revenue off of
consistent weight in aconsistent manner, which then
makes the projects where you'remaybe doing okay, I'll build you
this for x. It makes those morelike the cream on top, because
(13:49):
your core revenue is on repeatrepetitive. The other little bit
of advice I'd have aboutstarting to learn from my
mistakes, which is when youscope a project, make sure you
are scoping ranges, and notfixed price. Because or if
(14:09):
you're gonna do fixed price,which is fine. Make sure you are
super clear in your scope.
Because scope creep is the firstthing that will destroy your
time and profitability. Becauseyou know, you didn't fully
clarify with the clients if theythink you're going to do X, Y
and Zed and you think you can dox and then you end up doing y
and Zed for free. And it takesyou 15 hours.
Unknown (14:36):
So yeah, yeah project so always go longer than you
expect. There's always an issuethat crops up I found
definitely.
Jordan Fleming (14:46):
Well, we are the other thing that we do. If
someone like very few of ourclients will go straight to a
support contract. They usuallywant to try us first and make
sure you know make sure they'rehappy with how we work and the
relationship and all that sowhat we do His will, we've got
these our packages where peoplecan buy 10 up to 100 hours in
(15:06):
like, like a beat, they can buya chunk of 10 hours, 50 hours,
100 hours, whatever. And that'squite a good way of doing it as
well. Because then you're,you're essentially saying, okay,
you've got 10 hours to playwith, rather than I'm going to
build you this thing. Becauseonce you do the building this
thing, you've got to deliverthat thing. And if you've quoted
(15:29):
10 hours, and it takes you 30,and that's, you know, those are
models that can be verydangerous if you're trying to
scale up to the point where youhave staff. So, so tell me,
then, you know, I mean, youobviously, you know, your love
you love Podio, clearly, and youare you're successfully becoming
(15:51):
a Podio partner. Now, when youknow, you've you mentioned,
obviously working withsmartphone, that's great, from
my perspective, but what otherkinds of integrations have you
been using? Do you use proc foo?
Have you been learning thatyou've been doing more advanced
work? What is kind of what haveyou been kind of honing your
skills on?
Unknown (16:10):
Yeah, so I've only recently, I guess, in the past,
four to six months startedgetting into proc foo, I didn't
really get it at first. But ofcourse, being built by Andreas,
it's, it's amazing. Now, I thinkmy favourite feature of Prop
(16:32):
fair is definitely, you know,the fact that you can build
these these portals, I guess Icall it where people can log on,
see, see potencies stuff that'sin Podio, interact with it,
create new items, but withoutactually being in Podio. This is
the when people come to me andsay, oh, I want it split in, I
(16:53):
want my wholesale system splitcold call as acquisitions that I
hate split in workspaces, theynever recommend it. As a prop
foo, we can do this, and then wedon't need to split it.
Jordan Fleming (17:06):
That's perfect.
That's great. I mean, a, youknow, 100% agree with you mate.
Like that is the the multiworkspace, you know, I only want
each agent to see their ownstuff and not everybody else's
stuff. So let's build out ablah, blah, blah, oh, God, it
just opens up a whole world ofpain. That is simply not worth
it. We you know, and your spaand with the, you know, the
(17:29):
miniapp, the kind of funk thefunctionalities available within
the miniapp are, you know, youcan roll them out surprisingly
quick. And they just give thatthey also are really good from a
mobile experience point of view.
Because the Podio mobile appsbox, you know, we all like it's
(17:50):
fine for some things, but it'snot great for working in. And
many apps can give you like adedicated task list or
dedicated, I've got an emailmini app that I use my inbox
for. So if I want to send a newemail, I just boom, boom, boom,
bam. And it's quick and easy. Onthe mobile, which everything
else is not easy on so the butyou're spot on with that, that
(18:13):
the mini app is fantastic. Andso do you, you know, are you are
you inside the proc foo? useruses workspace using that as a
source of knowledge as well. And
Unknown (18:24):
yeah, I mean, I've definitely followed the forum
where people post the questions,because even if it's not
something I need currently, Imean, I did. I've done it also
with the globey flow. Sofollowing the forum, and if
someone posts a question, likejust following what other people
answer, because I mean, usuallywith proc foo, I have no idea
(18:45):
what the answer would be. Sothen under s comes back, and I
can definitely use that in thefuture. So yeah, the forums are
really useful. And yep, proc fusmartphone. I've also started
integrating things like Xero Ireally love integrating Xero.
(19:06):
Really? Yeah, I think I thinkit's a nice integration just to
pull everything into podia.
Jordan Fleming (19:14):
Kind of zero zeros API is a big compared to
like QuickBooks Online. QBOxAPI. You can spin it on a dime,
zeros causes nothing but paincomparatively. But fantastic.
Because are you based in the UKthen? Yeah, where are you based?
Unknown (19:34):
So Midlands Midlands near Manchester,
Jordan Fleming (19:37):
Manchester.
Okay. I used to live inScotland. I lived in Scotland
for 16 years. So I yeah, I knowthe UK. Well, yeah, zero is
probably got its biggestfootprint. Okay, hands up who's
using Podio for real estate andthey don't want more Leads.
Nobody. You want more than He'sclose well checkout smartphone
(20:00):
for Podio, the only phone systemfully built for Citrix Podio.
With an fully integrated powerdialer and our amazing mobile
apps, it means wherever you are,you can make more calls, love to
Podio, send more texts, love toPodio and close more deals all
all to your Podio CRM, click thelink. Check it out, I think in
(20:20):
Australia and the UK, becauseyou never see zero in the US
comparatively, it's alwaysQuickBooks Online QuickBooks
Online, QuickBooks Online. Sohow have you found you said
curiosity? Have you found? Areyou finding most of your
customers? Via so if you'redoing a lot of wholesaling work,
(20:41):
you're working in the US withpeople from the US? Are you able
to are you generating? Are youtrying to generate local sales
as well? Are you sort offocusing on real estate? Or
like, have you? Do you? Are youthinking about kind of attacking
certain types of work in Podio?
Or do you like to do that kindof multi broad approach, just
curiosity?
Unknown (21:02):
I'm, I'm quite open to anything at the moment, just
because I'm always happier whenit's non wholesale, because
wholesale I do all the time. Butif someone reaches out about a
different project in my work,that sounds quite interesting.
So So yeah, and I'm hoping alsoto start making YouTube videos
(21:22):
as well. Like, once they do somemore tutorials about just like
basic parts of Podio, and how tohelp people can level up the
Podio that there Podiothemselves. So I'm hoping that
that will bring in a morediverse range of clients. It's
actually I've, everyone I'veworked with has been from the
(21:42):
US, except that one UK architectfirm and a Finnish architect
firm as well. Funny enough. So Ithink Podio is just bigger in
the US. I don't think a lot ofthe UK people use it already
exists, unfortunately. Yeah,
Jordan Fleming (22:03):
I think I mean, the one thing is that Podio
that, like Podio has had adisproportionate presence in the
real estate investing community,whether you're wholesale my
particular wholesaling. But, youknow, when investor fuse first
launched with investor fuse didtheir first Podio, though, they
(22:25):
were the first ones to reallykind of create a replicable
Podio based real estate CRM thatthat was designed at, like, you
know, we're just gonna, we'regonna sell workspaces, right,
we're gonna, we're gonna do thatthey were the first ones to do
that. And they really got a lotof traction in that community.
(22:45):
And so there's a really largecommunity, within that real
estate environment in Podio,outside of that, there aren't as
many niche sectors, that noPodio like real estate is really
the largest.
Unknown (22:59):
I think, I think it's a shame because I think Podio for
both how much money you pay, andthe functionality, the
customization is, is second tonone. It's amazing. But I think
a lot of people are put off byPodio. But because of the, you
know, that they go for more ofthe pretty CRMs out there that
(23:23):
look a bit better, which and butbut are way less customizable.
And I think I think that's areal shame, because if they gave
Podio a chance, they'd realisethat, you know, they could do 10
times 20 times more than theycould do with the other CRMs
that are out there.
Jordan Fleming (23:39):
Yeah, the biggest I mean, I agree with
you, 100%, I think you're spoton there. I mean, there is
nothing that beats, there'sstill nothing that beats, the
flexibility that you can, youcan do with Podio. And because
globey flow is such a powerfultool, forget even proc foo, but
(24:00):
globey flow, there's nothingthat has that customizable
workflow element, which you cando even inside of globey flow,
you can do almost anything. Imean, take it to proc fool, you
can do anything. But even justinside globey flow, you can do
almost anything. And there'snothing out there that that has
that there's nothing that doesthat. It's just that there's I
(24:22):
always say there's a threemonths learning curve with
Podio. There's a learning curveof that user interface and the
app structure and clickingaround and people often are,
they don't really like to beginwith the fact that they gotta
click multiple, you know, theygotta go from app to app to app
to app type thing. But once youget into that flow, you realise
it doesn't matter. And actually,the benefits far outweigh the
(24:45):
negatives, but it takes like, Ithink it takes three months. And
a lot of people don't give itthat. So yeah,
Unknown (24:52):
yeah, I mean, it's also easy to link up different apps
with, you know, just a URL typething takes you directly to the
URL related offers item orsomething like that. So I think
it's, it's great, I think, yeah,people just need to give it a
little more time usually.
Jordan Fleming (25:09):
Yeah, but I agree with you. But even
something like that is notsomething that would be
intuitive to you out of the box.
Like putting a marked down tableof related items that you can or
are having a, having a, youknow, a calculation link that
goes to a specific item, orhowever you want to do it. Those
aren't things that out of thebox Podio seems like it can do,
(25:31):
or that you'd want to do. Andthat's the problem is that there
needs to be a certain level ofPodio, before it really starts
to kick in, and you're like, Oh,my God, this thing's amazing.
And I don't think a lot ofpeople get that out of the box,
are using Podio. With call rail.
There's a better way, click thelink, find out why hundreds of
(25:53):
businesses have moved over tousing smartphone, the only phone
system built for Podio. Makemore calls, send more texts and
close more deals.
Unknown (26:01):
Click like. So I like what you always say that you can
set your watch quarterly thatsomeone's going to complain
about something in Podio. Butyeah, I mean, you wouldn't you
wouldn't find the functionalityelsewhere.
Jordan Fleming (26:14):
Well, and to be fair to them. And we said this
in the pilot Podio partnerpodcast, which is recorded, you
know, I've seen more activityinside of the Podio developments
like Citrix ecosystem over thelast year than I've seen for the
previous six years. Seven years
Unknown (26:30):
that was calculate the calculation fields have
definitely speeded up so much.
Jordan Fleming (26:35):
They are certainly, you know, there is an
energy in a dry even the new UI,whether you like it or not, I
actually, I've grown to like itin a way that I wasn't expecting
I, every once in a while, I haveto go back to the old UI. And
I'm like, Whoa, that looks, youknow, that looks that looks
Asian. And, you know, I've gotI've grown to like the new UI,
(26:56):
and there is sort of a fit, youknow, there is just a bit of
energy about Podio now, and Ihope it continues. I really do.
So tell me, as we want apodcast, you know, where if
people are, you know, obviously,not just wholesalers, but if
people are looking for Podiopartner to get in contact? Where
are they going to find you? Howdo you usually work on a, you
(27:19):
know, up your engagements withpeople? Let us know. And I'll
make sure I post it in thepodcast information as well. So
tell us a bit about that.
Unknown (27:29):
Yeah, so I mean, I don't actually my websites in
the process of being belts. Soat the time of the recording,
there is no website. But youknow, people can reach out using
Martin arts or otter.io O R ATA.
And yeah, that's pretty much itat the moment. I will, there
will be videos on YouTube in thecoming in the coming months. So
(27:53):
you know, look out for those.
I'm sure if you're typing inPodio, I aim to be the first
person that comes up. So yeah,that, but at the moment, just
just email.
Jordan Fleming (28:06):
Excellent. All right, well, I'll make sure that
I put your emailmartin@aurora.io into the
podcast description. And on thewebsite page, I do encourage
everyone drop Martin a line.
Obviously, you've heard it, it'shis experience. You've heard
what he can do. And he's gotproficiency and all this, you
know, not only in Podio, buthe's been you know, getting it
you know, many apps is a greatone. If you don't know many
(28:28):
apps, go look at it, and thendrop them on the line as well.
Martin, thank you so much. Itwas a pleasure to finally meet
you. So I think we've rearrangedit a couple of times because of
my travelling and then for otherreasons as well. But absolute
pleasure to have you on thepodcast and inside of the Podio
partner ecosystem. And thank youso much for joining me today.
Unknown (28:47):
Yeah, thanks for having me, Jordan.
Narrator (28:50):
You've been listening to another awesome episode of
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You're watching another supercharged masterclass
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Podio partners in the world,
Jordan Fleming (00:14):
everybody, and welcome to this week's episode
of supercharged, I'm your host,Jordan Fleming here to talk all
about the power of workflow andautomation when your business is
powered by Podio. Well, today'sepisode features a poor partner,
Martin Evans, Martin is based inthe UK, he got a lot of clients
(00:36):
in us, though, particularlyaround real estate in history.
And it's my first time getting achance to talk to Martin. And it
was really fun to to get to knowhim get to understand how he
sort of got into Podio talk abit about how we then kind of
moved on into being more of aPodio consultant Now does that
(00:58):
full time, which is a fantasticstory, I always love to hear
from newer Podio partners, abouthow they're getting into it,
what they're working on how theysee kind of Podio, where it's
going, and how they'reintegrating it into their life
as a business. And that's, youknow, one of the really fun
things about this podcast,Martin has got a great story.
(01:18):
He's got a, you know, real sortof up and coming kind of journey
in Podio, which I love. And hereally is doing a great job. You
know, it's fantastic to see himactive on the Citrix PWA. And
proc foo. workspace is afantastic to see him working
(01:38):
with people and just a reallyfun story. And I'm hopefully
going to be meeting Martin inthe in the flesh in our upcoming
Podio partner meet up with whichwe do in Europe, we used to do
in Europe every year, and thenCOVID hit us. But we're back to
that. So in September of 2022,which will date this podcast if
(02:01):
you're listening to this in2023. But we will be meeting up
as a group of Podio partners,and I'm gonna really look
forward to meeting Martin there.
So let's dive right in to thepodcast.
Listen, Martin, first of allpodcasts. Why don't you tell me
(02:23):
just a little bit about sort ofhow you got into Podio. And more
importantly, then how youtransitioned or decided to
transition into working withother people on their Podio and
becoming a Podio. Partner.
Unknown (02:36):
And thanks, Jordan, thanks for having me. Yeah, I
originally got started because Istarted working for a a
landlord, basically, that hadproperties. And he wanted to
systemize because they were allover the place. And he wanted
some kind of feature where hehad everything in one place. So
we were looking at differentoptions. And a lot of people had
(03:00):
mentioned Podio. So he investedin the UK, but was also a member
of a US wholesaling group. Andthey were using Podio as well.
So that's how he kind of got toknow Podio. So I, I've always
kind of been interested inlearning new things. And I
thought, Okay, this sounds likequite cool challenge. So I got
(03:23):
started using Podio. Now, and itwas it was really difficult at
first. But it's okay. Yeah,there's quite a large learning
curve to it. So it's, I guess,it took me maybe four hours to
do the basic basic things andfigure everything out and that
(03:47):
type of thing, but but the wholetime, I ended up staying up till
about six o'clock in the morningsometimes because I was like,
No, before I'm going to bed. I'mgetting this finished. Oh,
that's
Jordan Fleming (03:58):
a dangerous game to play. All right.
Unknown (04:01):
Yeah. So there was a lot of trial and error, and also
a lot of help from the guys inthe forum. So I definitely think
without you know, the likes ofDamian row Gary Reiner.
Jordan Fleming (04:18):
everybody's favourite Rainer? Yeah,
Unknown (04:21):
yeah. I mean, posting questions in the forum, right
when I was starting, was souseful for me because I don't.
Yeah, and I don't have any codeand coding background. So I
ended up creating kind of acheat sheet for myself where I'd
be tight copy and paste in inthe code, and then explaining
(04:42):
what it does at the top. So thatwas quite helpful when I was
first started. Yeah, anddefinitely the forum was really
helpful. I don't think I wouldhave been able to figure it out
myself without the help of theforum. Because the isn't
actually that muchdocumentation. Do you know how
to do these things? I don'tthink so. Yeah. Oh, you
Jordan Fleming (05:04):
should have seen what it was like when it first
when, when globey flow firstlaunched. And it was called
Podio flow at that point.
Andreas called it Podio flow.
But then Citrix said no.
Weirdly, then they bought globeyflow and didn't bother just
using Podio. Flow is the name,which makes no much more sense.
(05:24):
But yeah, well, I mean, when itfirst launched, there was really
no documentation. And, you know,it didn't have things like if an
end blocks, so you couldn't donested sort of processes, you
had to daisy chain ones flowstogether. Because you didn't
(05:52):
have that kind of capability.
And you were limited at you,when you first I was telling us
to some partners, like we had apoll, a partner, group podcast,
we recorded the other day. And,and because I was aside from jaw
aside from Seth, I'm one of theolder of the partners. So back
(06:15):
then, the plan you bought forglobey flow limited, not only
how many flows, how many actionsper month, but how many flows
you're allowed to have as well,which meant that suddenly you
had to make decisions, like, doI want to do this flow that
simply adds a date field, it'sgonna take up the valuable, you
(06:38):
know, one, one hundreds of myflow allegations just for that.
So yours back in the day, man,you're, you're, you're you're,
you're somewhat blessed. So tellme, you're working. I mean, it
now it makes sense when you saidproperty, property management is
not something that Podio isreally good at. I'm a huge
football fan, but wholesalingthe massive. So you're working
(07:03):
for that company, and then youwere a you, you know, you
decided to start building Podiofor other people. And do all
that, how did that that kind oftransition go from being your
own, you know, building kind of,for one company one purpose to
having to understand otherpeople's processes, and work
(07:25):
around how they want to work?
What was that transition likefor you?
Unknown (07:29):
Um, so, I mean, I was loving Podio, like I, at the
time, I was thinking, if I couldjust drop everything and just do
Podio full time, that would beamazing. So I started
advertising, my services. And Igot, I was surprised, like how
(07:49):
quickly people started reachingout to me. The first one, the
first client I ever had, hereached out to me, and I
thought, that seems prettysimple. So as like, 50 $50.
Cool, let's do it. And untilthis day, it's still the
hardest, hardest class I've everhad 50 bucks. And it probably
(08:15):
took me about eight hours plusof figuring it out. And then in
the end, I still couldn't do it.
And I had to reach out to one ofthe other Podio partners to do
it for me, so that it was it waskind of a rocky start at the
beginning. But, but since then,it's been going great. And I
think what helped me a lot is,so I'm not the kind of a shy
(08:36):
person. And I think I'm quitegood at understanding what
people want. So the the kind of,you know, process of speaking to
the client and understandingtheir project, and that I enjoy
that. And I really enjoy thebuilding out side of things as
well. So at the moment, it's alot of a lot of wholesale that
(09:00):
I'm doing. I guess a lot ofpeople are start with wholesale
whole working with wholesalers.
But I've done other few otherprojects with UK based
architects, I guess that's thebiggest system I've built. It
was a an architect that was justusing Excel sheets and wanted to
(09:24):
change from Yeah, their Excelsheets. And they posted on
Facebook, they were looking forsome kind of CRM and I said, Oh,
I can give you a tour of Podioif you if you like and we ended
up working together. And yeah,I've built quite a big system
for them integrated smartphoneas well of course and they're
(09:45):
loving it. So yeah, and now nowI'm kind of at the point where I
have a lot of people come intome but it's that that building
point, which I would love to askyou like how you went from, you
know, being a one man by And tokind of get in other people
like, how you went about thatprocess?
Jordan Fleming (10:05):
Hey, are you using Podio to manage your real
estate investment business?
Wait, click the link to find outwhy 1000s of real estate
investment professionals areusing Podio plus smartphone to
make more calls, send more textand close more deals. Click the
link. Well, I mean, I've hadvarious businesses for the past
17 years now or so, ish. I'venever really been employed. I
(10:28):
just couldn't, I never did that.
Um, I mean, the truth of thematter is that there's never a
right time to start employingpeople. There's never a right
time, because it's all you know,sooner or later, the moment you
employ someone, your cash flowis gonna suffer, like, and
you're gonna just be like, Ah,shit, I gotta pay these people
(10:48):
in, and I don't have any moremoney. But, you know, I mean,
just probably exactly whatyou've been doing, you know, you
just start to you out you you,you do one thing, and that leads
to another and and leads toanother and you get enough
momentum that you find I foundthat was a tipping point, where,
because you have to do sales,but you got to do work. And so
(11:11):
like, the first step I did was,I was drowning a little, quite
honestly, this is long time agonow. But and because I was
drowning with the I had to dosales to get the new projects
coming in. But I also had to dothe building bit. And ah, and so
what I ended up doing this, Iended up breaking my day up into
(11:33):
two and three, my week, my week,Tuesdays and Thursdays, I did
sales only, I dedicated it. AndMonday was his Fridays, I did
work only and, and I would nottake meetings on Monday,
Wednesdays and Fridays, ifsomeone wanted to meet me, I'm
even a new client. No, Tuesdaysand Thursdays can meet this
week, we'll do next week. But Iwas really disciplined about
(11:54):
that, because I needed tobalance that. And then I finally
got to the point where it'slike, okay, now I need someone
to just be able to execute on,you know, execute these things,
the challenge you have, as youstart to build that in Podio is
finding good people who know howto build Podio is really hard.
(12:17):
Like, it's really hard to findgood people, we've been lucky.
You know, we've been lucky withour team in game changers. But
finding, you know, you end uphaving to either find just
really good people and teachthem or be really lucky and find
someone who knows Podio Yeah,you know, the other thing is
(12:41):
move as quickly as you can, tosome sort of retained model is
my advice. I know Pete Petecough from future solutions may
argue with me on this one. But,but you know what, there's
nothing that beats retainedrecurring revenue, in order to
build up a business and havecash flow that supports bringing
(13:02):
new people on. And so, you know,like, for instance, we have
support contracts that rangefrom 299 a month to to 2500 a
month, right, and their monthly,you know, and each one of those
has a certain amount of hoursdedicated to it a certain SLA
response, time, prioritisation,etc, you know, the more you pay,
(13:23):
obviously, the more you know,the more you get, and the more
crucial things are. But thosesorts of arrangements mean that
you can lay in a foundationalbase of revenue off of
consistent weight in aconsistent manner, which then
makes the projects where you'remaybe doing okay, I'll build you
this for x. It makes those morelike the cream on top, because
(13:49):
your core revenue is on repeatrepetitive. The other little bit
of advice I'd have aboutstarting to learn from my
mistakes, which is when youscope a project, make sure you
are scoping ranges, and notfixed price. Because or if
(14:09):
you're gonna do fixed price,which is fine. Make sure you are
super clear in your scope.
Because scope creep is the firstthing that will destroy your
time and profitability. Becauseyou know, you didn't fully
clarify with the clients if theythink you're going to do X, Y
and Zed and you think you can dox and then you end up doing y
and Zed for free. And it takesyou 15 hours.
Unknown (14:36):
So yeah, yeah project so always go longer than you
expect. There's always an issuethat crops up I found
definitely.
Jordan Fleming (14:46):
Well, we are the other thing that we do. If
someone like very few of ourclients will go straight to a
support contract. They usuallywant to try us first and make
sure you know make sure they'rehappy with how we work and the
relationship and all that sowhat we do His will, we've got
these our packages where peoplecan buy 10 up to 100 hours in
(15:06):
like, like a beat, they can buya chunk of 10 hours, 50 hours,
100 hours, whatever. And that'squite a good way of doing it as
well. Because then you're,you're essentially saying, okay,
you've got 10 hours to playwith, rather than I'm going to
build you this thing. Becauseonce you do the building this
thing, you've got to deliverthat thing. And if you've quoted
(15:29):
10 hours, and it takes you 30,and that's, you know, those are
models that can be verydangerous if you're trying to
scale up to the point where youhave staff. So, so tell me,
then, you know, I mean, youobviously, you know, your love
you love Podio, clearly, and youare you're successfully becoming
(15:51):
a Podio partner. Now, when youknow, you've you mentioned,
obviously working withsmartphone, that's great, from
my perspective, but what otherkinds of integrations have you
been using? Do you use proc foo?
Have you been learning thatyou've been doing more advanced
work? What is kind of what haveyou been kind of honing your
skills on?
Unknown (16:10):
Yeah, so I've only recently, I guess, in the past,
four to six months startedgetting into proc foo, I didn't
really get it at first. But ofcourse, being built by Andreas,
it's, it's amazing. Now, I thinkmy favourite feature of Prop
(16:32):
fair is definitely, you know,the fact that you can build
these these portals, I guess Icall it where people can log on,
see, see potencies stuff that'sin Podio, interact with it,
create new items, but withoutactually being in Podio. This is
the when people come to me andsay, oh, I want it split in, I
(16:53):
want my wholesale system splitcold call as acquisitions that I
hate split in workspaces, theynever recommend it. As a prop
foo, we can do this, and then wedon't need to split it.
Jordan Fleming (17:06):
That's perfect.
That's great. I mean, a, youknow, 100% agree with you mate.
Like that is the the multiworkspace, you know, I only want
each agent to see their ownstuff and not everybody else's
stuff. So let's build out ablah, blah, blah, oh, God, it
just opens up a whole world ofpain. That is simply not worth
it. We you know, and your spaand with the, you know, the
(17:29):
miniapp, the kind of funk thefunctionalities available within
the miniapp are, you know, youcan roll them out surprisingly
quick. And they just give thatthey also are really good from a
mobile experience point of view.
Because the Podio mobile appsbox, you know, we all like it's
(17:50):
fine for some things, but it'snot great for working in. And
many apps can give you like adedicated task list or
dedicated, I've got an emailmini app that I use my inbox
for. So if I want to send a newemail, I just boom, boom, boom,
bam. And it's quick and easy. Onthe mobile, which everything
else is not easy on so the butyou're spot on with that, that
(18:13):
the mini app is fantastic. Andso do you, you know, are you are
you inside the proc foo? useruses workspace using that as a
source of knowledge as well. And
Unknown (18:24):
yeah, I mean, I've definitely followed the forum
where people post the questions,because even if it's not
something I need currently, Imean, I did. I've done it also
with the globey flow. Sofollowing the forum, and if
someone posts a question, likejust following what other people
answer, because I mean, usuallywith proc foo, I have no idea
(18:45):
what the answer would be. Sothen under s comes back, and I
can definitely use that in thefuture. So yeah, the forums are
really useful. And yep, proc fusmartphone. I've also started
integrating things like Xero Ireally love integrating Xero.
(19:06):
Really? Yeah, I think I thinkit's a nice integration just to
pull everything into podia.
Jordan Fleming (19:14):
Kind of zero zeros API is a big compared to
like QuickBooks Online. QBOxAPI. You can spin it on a dime,
zeros causes nothing but paincomparatively. But fantastic.
Because are you based in the UKthen? Yeah, where are you based?
Unknown (19:34):
So Midlands Midlands near Manchester,
Jordan Fleming (19:37):
Manchester.
Okay. I used to live inScotland. I lived in Scotland
for 16 years. So I yeah, I knowthe UK. Well, yeah, zero is
probably got its biggestfootprint. Okay, hands up who's
using Podio for real estate andthey don't want more Leads.
Nobody. You want more than He'sclose well checkout smartphone
(20:00):
for Podio, the only phone systemfully built for Citrix Podio.
With an fully integrated powerdialer and our amazing mobile
apps, it means wherever you are,you can make more calls, love to
Podio, send more texts, love toPodio and close more deals all
all to your Podio CRM, click thelink. Check it out, I think in
(20:20):
Australia and the UK, becauseyou never see zero in the US
comparatively, it's alwaysQuickBooks Online QuickBooks
Online, QuickBooks Online. Sohow have you found you said
curiosity? Have you found? Areyou finding most of your
customers? Via so if you'redoing a lot of wholesaling work,
(20:41):
you're working in the US withpeople from the US? Are you able
to are you generating? Are youtrying to generate local sales
as well? Are you sort offocusing on real estate? Or
like, have you? Do you? Are youthinking about kind of attacking
certain types of work in Podio?
Or do you like to do that kindof multi broad approach, just
curiosity?
Unknown (21:02):
I'm, I'm quite open to anything at the moment, just
because I'm always happier whenit's non wholesale, because
wholesale I do all the time. Butif someone reaches out about a
different project in my work,that sounds quite interesting.
So So yeah, and I'm hoping alsoto start making YouTube videos
(21:22):
as well. Like, once they do somemore tutorials about just like
basic parts of Podio, and how tohelp people can level up the
Podio that there Podiothemselves. So I'm hoping that
that will bring in a morediverse range of clients. It's
actually I've, everyone I'veworked with has been from the
(21:42):
US, except that one UK architectfirm and a Finnish architect
firm as well. Funny enough. So Ithink Podio is just bigger in
the US. I don't think a lot ofthe UK people use it already
exists, unfortunately. Yeah,
Jordan Fleming (22:03):
I think I mean, the one thing is that Podio
that, like Podio has had adisproportionate presence in the
real estate investing community,whether you're wholesale my
particular wholesaling. But, youknow, when investor fuse first
launched with investor fuse didtheir first Podio, though, they
(22:25):
were the first ones to reallykind of create a replicable
Podio based real estate CRM thatthat was designed at, like, you
know, we're just gonna, we'regonna sell workspaces, right,
we're gonna, we're gonna do thatthey were the first ones to do
that. And they really got a lotof traction in that community.
(22:45):
And so there's a really largecommunity, within that real
estate environment in Podio,outside of that, there aren't as
many niche sectors, that noPodio like real estate is really
the largest.
Unknown (22:59):
I think, I think it's a shame because I think Podio for
both how much money you pay, andthe functionality, the
customization is, is second tonone. It's amazing. But I think
a lot of people are put off byPodio. But because of the, you
know, that they go for more ofthe pretty CRMs out there that
(23:23):
look a bit better, which and butbut are way less customizable.
And I think I think that's areal shame, because if they gave
Podio a chance, they'd realisethat, you know, they could do 10
times 20 times more than theycould do with the other CRMs
that are out there.
Jordan Fleming (23:39):
Yeah, the biggest I mean, I agree with
you, 100%, I think you're spoton there. I mean, there is
nothing that beats, there'sstill nothing that beats, the
flexibility that you can, youcan do with Podio. And because
globey flow is such a powerfultool, forget even proc foo, but
(24:00):
globey flow, there's nothingthat has that customizable
workflow element, which you cando even inside of globey flow,
you can do almost anything. Imean, take it to proc fool, you
can do anything. But even justinside globey flow, you can do
almost anything. And there'snothing out there that that has
that there's nothing that doesthat. It's just that there's I
(24:22):
always say there's a threemonths learning curve with
Podio. There's a learning curveof that user interface and the
app structure and clickingaround and people often are,
they don't really like to beginwith the fact that they gotta
click multiple, you know, theygotta go from app to app to app
to app type thing. But once youget into that flow, you realise
it doesn't matter. And actually,the benefits far outweigh the
(24:45):
negatives, but it takes like, Ithink it takes three months. And
a lot of people don't give itthat. So yeah,
Unknown (24:52):
yeah, I mean, it's also easy to link up different apps
with, you know, just a URL typething takes you directly to the
URL related offers item orsomething like that. So I think
it's, it's great, I think, yeah,people just need to give it a
little more time usually.
Jordan Fleming (25:09):
Yeah, but I agree with you. But even
something like that is notsomething that would be
intuitive to you out of the box.
Like putting a marked down tableof related items that you can or
are having a, having a, youknow, a calculation link that
goes to a specific item, orhowever you want to do it. Those
aren't things that out of thebox Podio seems like it can do,
(25:31):
or that you'd want to do. Andthat's the problem is that there
needs to be a certain level ofPodio, before it really starts
to kick in, and you're like, Oh,my God, this thing's amazing.
And I don't think a lot ofpeople get that out of the box,
are using Podio. With call rail.
There's a better way, click thelink, find out why hundreds of
(25:53):
businesses have moved over tousing smartphone, the only phone
system built for Podio. Makemore calls, send more texts and
close more deals.
Unknown (26:01):
Click like. So I like what you always say that you can
set your watch quarterly thatsomeone's going to complain
about something in Podio. Butyeah, I mean, you wouldn't you
wouldn't find the functionalityelsewhere.
Jordan Fleming (26:14):
Well, and to be fair to them. And we said this
in the pilot Podio partnerpodcast, which is recorded, you
know, I've seen more activityinside of the Podio developments
like Citrix ecosystem over thelast year than I've seen for the
previous six years. Seven years
Unknown (26:30):
that was calculate the calculation fields have
definitely speeded up so much.
Jordan Fleming (26:35):
They are certainly, you know, there is an
energy in a dry even the new UI,whether you like it or not, I
actually, I've grown to like itin a way that I wasn't expecting
I, every once in a while, I haveto go back to the old UI. And
I'm like, Whoa, that looks, youknow, that looks that looks
Asian. And, you know, I've gotI've grown to like the new UI,
(26:56):
and there is sort of a fit, youknow, there is just a bit of
energy about Podio now, and Ihope it continues. I really do.
So tell me, as we want apodcast, you know, where if
people are, you know, obviously,not just wholesalers, but if
people are looking for Podiopartner to get in contact? Where
are they going to find you? Howdo you usually work on a, you
(27:19):
know, up your engagements withpeople? Let us know. And I'll
make sure I post it in thepodcast information as well. So
tell us a bit about that.
Unknown (27:29):
Yeah, so I mean, I don't actually my websites in
the process of being belts. Soat the time of the recording,
there is no website. But youknow, people can reach out using
Martin arts or otter.io O R ATA.
And yeah, that's pretty much itat the moment. I will, there
will be videos on YouTube in thecoming in the coming months. So
(27:53):
you know, look out for those.
I'm sure if you're typing inPodio, I aim to be the first
person that comes up. So yeah,that, but at the moment, just
just email.
Jordan Fleming (28:06):
Excellent. All right, well, I'll make sure that
I put your emailmartin@aurora.io into the
podcast description. And on thewebsite page, I do encourage
everyone drop Martin a line.
Obviously, you've heard it, it'shis experience. You've heard
what he can do. And he's gotproficiency and all this, you
know, not only in Podio, buthe's been you know, getting it
you know, many apps is a greatone. If you don't know many
(28:28):
apps, go look at it, and thendrop them on the line as well.
Martin, thank you so much. Itwas a pleasure to finally meet
you. So I think we've rearrangedit a couple of times because of
my travelling and then for otherreasons as well. But absolute
pleasure to have you on thepodcast and inside of the Podio
partner ecosystem. And thank youso much for joining me today.
Unknown (28:47):
Yeah, thanks for having me, Jordan.
Narrator (28:50):
You've been listening to another awesome episode of
supercharged with Jordan SamuelFleming. Don't forget to hit the
subscribe button on our YouTubechannel to be notified of new
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