February 4, 2025 • 28 mins
Today we are taking a deep dive into the Google Workspace Suite of tools. These free tools are cloud based and able to be accessed in minutes after the creation of a Gmail account.
These tools are widely considered to be industry standard tools, as they make collaboration and asynchronous editing possible. Learn how the Punchmark team has been using these as well as how you can level up your own company's collaboration skills with them!
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
Inquire about sponsoring In the Loupe and showcase your business on our next episode: podcast@punchmark.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome to In the Loop email or an AOL email.
I'm going to scream.
It is time for you to get onthe G Suite bandwagon.
I've been on it for years.
All of Punchmark is run off ofthe G Suite, which I'll get into
, but it's primarily part ofGoogle Drive, gmail, google
(00:38):
Sheets, google Docs, googleSlides and Google Forms.
I'd recommend you just take alook or sit back and I'll
explain the value of each ofthem and why I use them and why
I prefer that over, for example,the Microsoft suite.
All right, let's enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the
jewelry industry's favoritewebsite platform and digital
growth agency.
Our mission reaches way beyondtechnology.
With decades of experience andlong-lasting industry
relationships, punchmark enablesjewelry businesses to flourish
in any marketplace.
We consider our clients ourfriends, as many of them have
(01:20):
been friends way before becomingclients.
Punchmark's own success comesfrom the fact that we have a
much deeper need and obligationto help our friends succeed.
Whether you're looking forbetter e-commerce performance,
business growth or campaignsthat drive traffic and sales,
punchmark's website andmarketing services were made
just for you.
It's never too late totransform your business and
(01:42):
stitch together your digital andphysical worlds in a way that
achieves tremendous growth andresults.
Schedule a guided demo today atpunchmarkcom.
Slash go.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And now back to the show.
Okay, everybody.
So, like I mentioned in theintro, this is going to be about
the G Suite.
That's what I'm referring to it, as that is Google's suite of
products and they all workreally well together.
(02:14):
What I'm primarily referring tois Gmail.
It is the industry standard andvery, very much understood to
be the industry standard.
It's free and all of thesetools are free.
You pretty much access it witha Gmail.
Google Drive, which is sort oflike a Dropbox, but it connects
(02:36):
and contains all of the filesfor the other ones.
Google Docs, which is sort oflike Microsoft Word, except it's
cloud-based.
Google Sheets, which is justlike Excel.
This is the only one which Iwill accept people using
Microsoft Excel for certaininstances.
If you're like really deep intomaking pivot tables and data
(02:56):
and stuff like that.
Google Forms, which is theindustry standard.
I honestly recommend usingGoogle Forms over any other form
.
Unless you have a CMS likeHubSpot, then maybe it makes
sense to pipe it into your CMS,but I would recommend Google
Forms for any other reason.
(03:17):
And Google Slides, which isjust like a slideshow Microsoft
PowerPoint, essentially.
So let's get into each of them.
I want to start at Gmail.
Gmail is the industry standardand what I recommend off of that
is that you immediately get alot more.
(03:37):
I don't want to say respect,but you're understood to be
legitimate if you email with aGmail.
The reason why is the spamcatching and the ability to
prevent bots from using Gmailsis a lot higher than, for
example, these more defunct oneslike AOLcom.
(03:58):
So the reason why you know it'sa Gmail is your email is going
to end in gmailcom or you canactually overwrite that and have
it be based off of your domainand this is like a business
version so you can use.
For example, all of Punchmark'sstuff is at punchmarkcom and a
(04:22):
lot of our businesses have that.
I believe it costs a little bitof money and you have to own
the domain.
However, I recommend you justmake a Gmail.
If you don't yet have a Gmail,I'd recommend that you make one,
because it takes two secondsand it's free and it will get
you access to the other parts ofit.
So the other parts about itthat I really like is it has
(04:46):
really high deliverability.
Again, google is the industrystandard for man a lot of things
, and with that comes they havea really high ability to sniff
out bots and spam.
Their spam catchers are thehighest in the industry.
You can have add-ons that willcatch even more spam, but what
(05:09):
that means is you're less likelyto get phished.
And what I've been doing foryears is sometimes I go into my
spam, you know, once a month,once every couple months, just
to see if anything got caught byspam that you know maybe I'd
need, and I have never prettymuch ever found some spam that
(05:29):
was supposed to be a realdeliverable.
So with that I find that itreally gives you the sense of
legitimacy and I genuinelybelieve that their service and
their ability to connect emailsand forward stuff to each other
is so much higher than againlike a Hotmail.
(05:50):
Not that I don't think that itworks for you and I understand
the fact that you might beattached to your Hotmail, but I
do believe that Gmail is thestandard and I have like five
Gmails.
I use one only for signing upfor free accounts.
That one I only use because youknow you get put into their
(06:15):
marketing system, the differentmarketing systems, and I don't
want that.
Going to my work email I have awork email.
I have a professional one formy life outside of work.
I have one that I only use fortesting things, for Punchmark,
so that one I only use when itcomes to testing email sequences
(06:38):
to get pushed there.
So I would recommend that youat least look into getting a
Gmail.
If you own a domain, you have awebsite for your jewelry store,
that you consider setting upall of your emails through there
.
Okay, that's enough on Gmail.
I highly recommend it.
Let's talk about Drive, googleDrive.
(06:58):
So Google Drive is one of thosethings I actually got into when
I was in college.
We organize all of our workthrough Google Drive.
The reason why I recommendGoogle Drive is that, again,
it's cloud-based, which meansthat everything can be edited
all at once, with all of thedifferent edits being synced, so
(07:22):
you can actually have multiplepeople in the Google Drive or on
the same documents and they'llbe syncing in real time.
And what that is really greatabout is, for example, if you're
using Dropbox and you have allthese Microsoft documents,
people can be editing and thensomeone might have another
(07:43):
version and then they merge andthen one gets overwritten and
suddenly all that work was lost,which happens a lot.
I highly recommend, if you'redoing something collaborative,
you consider working with aGoogle Drive.
It's super easy to figure out.
It kind of the utility of itdoesn't reveal itself until you
(08:07):
start working with two otherpeople and then suddenly it's
like, wow, this is really useful.
And what's really nice about it, too, is that you can also work
and collaborate outside of yourorganization.
So we use to give you an idea,we use Google Drive as a
organizational tool for when wework on the vendor vault, which
(08:30):
we've talked about before in thepast on In the Loop.
It is our publication forPunchmark.
When you work on a publication,oh my gosh, you are constantly
working on different sheets anddocuments all at the same time.
Everybody needs to know what'sgoing on.
Edits are coming in all thetime and if you were working on
(08:50):
a document and putting it up,well, suddenly I had one time
someone was working on an entireintro for this magazine I was
working on in college and theyspent like an entire day on it.
One person hit Command S andsaved on top of that sheet while
they had closed it down and itwiped an entire day's work on it
(09:14):
and let me say it was not greatfor our team cohesion.
People were very upset.
But with a Google document orwith a drive, that would be
totally taken care of.
Again, it's free and a greatpart of it is.
Sometimes in the past I'veworked on these big, expansive
projects with outsidecontractors.
(09:37):
For example, I've talked aboutStephanie Momont Rhodes and she
was a editor, a copy editor forus, and what I like about that
is that I can just give heraccess to a, I guess, a smaller
folder and she can add all ofthe copy into that folder
(09:57):
without ever getting access toany of the other assets or
anything like that, so she canonly see what I've allowed her
to see, which is the copy.
And that way it keeps the scopea lot more controlled.
And not that I'm ever worriedabout that, but it can be
helpful, especially if you'reworking on sensitive things.
(10:19):
At Punchmark, as I've startedto climb in the leadership roles
a lot of the times, the easiestway to onboard someone is you
just add them by email to theappropriate level of, I guess,
permissions to the Google Drive.
(10:39):
And when I got promoted todirector, well, suddenly you
have access to the directorsection of the Google Drive as
opposed to having to send them.
You know an entire zip folderwith a ton of different
documents and suddenly it's kindof sensitive, because what if
they took it and they forwardedit over to someone?
Well, in Google Drive they'rejust in there and they can't
(11:03):
really share anything externallyotherwise.
So that's Google Drive.
I really like it.
It's kind of like theconnective ligaments between
everything.
It's where everything sits.
I personally don't like Dropbox.
It's too stagnant and clunkyfor me.
But I can see how people likeit, dropbox.
(11:25):
The benefit to it is that youdon't have to.
I think it's cheaper when itcomes to the cost of the.
It's cheaper when it comes tothe cost of the data that's in
there.
In Drive, you can quickly rackup expensive charges if you're
putting like terabytes ofinformation files in there, like
(11:45):
if you're working in reallylarge photographs that you know
you might have a photograph thatis 100 gigabytes large.
You know if it was shot in rawor 50 gigabytes, and it might be
a suite of them or an entirephoto shoot, in which case that
is going to take up a lot ofcloud information and suddenly
(12:05):
you're getting charged.
You know a little bit of money,but if you're not working in
raw, well, you don't really haveto worry about that.
Ok, let's talk about GoogleDocuments.
This one.
I probably use Google Documentsevery hour of every single day.
I work at Punchmark.
(12:27):
I'm constantly in DocumentsThings I love about it.
It's exactly like Word.
Microsoft Word is theforebringer.
However, google Docs iscloud-based.
Microsoft Word is usuallytethered to your account and
Microsoft Word costs money.
So there you go.
Word is backwards compatible,so you can actually import docs
(12:51):
into Word and it'll work exactlythe same.
However, it's kind of hard toswitch it back.
It kind of freezes it in time,if you will, and it allows for
multiple people to dynamicallyedit the same document.
Why is that good?
Well, have you ever worked on areally long document and then
(13:12):
suddenly you're working and youoverwrite on top of people?
Well, this makes it so thatsomeone can be working on the
intro and someone could beworking on the outro, and it
doesn't even matter.
You can see their cursorjumping around.
It's very collaborative and Ipersonally, I use Google Docs
every single time I write a blogpost.
I start in Google Docs.
(13:33):
It has a great spell checker init.
I know that sounds so dumb, butI think it's the best out there
.
It's way more effective thanwriting in Slack, and I think
Docs is.
If I write any copy.
I just share the document withpeople and I have a new system
that goes along with it.
One of the things I do with mydocs is I sometimes set the docs
(13:59):
to be, I guess, comment onlymode.
So instead of people being ableto edit what I wrote, they can
only leave comments, and thecomment system requires a little
getting used to, but Isometimes do that.
For example, I wrote the yearin review for Punchmark.
The document was like 5,000words long and it was really
(14:24):
took a lot of time, and then Ishared it with everybody at the
company.
But instead of letting anyoneedit it directly, I asked that
they all commented their edits,and that way I knew, you know,
hey, this is a grammatical edit,no problem, I'll just approve
it.
But if people try to reformatit, well, I had to approve that.
(14:45):
Yes, it's a little bitcontrolling, but it makes it so
that I don't have to ensurewe're all on the same page.
Sometimes I can just be like no, that's just not the way that
we're going to format things.
All right, everybody, we'regoing to take a quick break and
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(15:05):
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There'll be more information inthe show notes below.
And now back to the show.
And we're back.
(16:19):
I know the flow and if you comein and try to, you know, switch
things up drastically.
Well, let's talk about it first.
It's a little bit more control.
I think that Docs is amazing.
It also allows you to embedimages really well and I find it
super awesome for that, and youcan actually import Google Docs
(16:40):
into things like Confluence,which we use to write our
knowledge base, and you canattach them to readme documents
and things like that.
I'm just a huge fan of GoogleDocs.
If you can't tell, I find itextremely helpful.
It is industry standard, waybetter than Microsoft documents
(17:03):
or whatever, so I am a big fan.
All right, let's talk aboutSheets.
And as excited as I am forMicrosoft, for Google Docs, I'm
even more excited for GoogleSheets.
I think that Google Sheets areincredible.
Sheets are the Excel version,so you know lots of cells and
(17:26):
tables, tables, and the onething I will say about it is it
is good for about 75 to 85% ofeverything you want to do with a
sheet.
There are some people who don't,who wouldn't want to use Google
Sheets, and for those people Iunderstand you can't really do
(17:50):
these advanced formulas andmergings and pivot tables quite
as much, and I actually asked myvendor liaison, kimberly, why
she prefers to use MicrosoftExcel and the reason why she's
(18:10):
explained it is that there's alot of formatting and VLOOKUPs
and pivot tables that she canuse to find the issues with data
files a lot easier.
Personally, that kind of goes alittle bit over my head.
I don't understand.
I use it for organizingprojects and project outlines a
(18:32):
lot because I find that puttingthings into a spreadsheet makes
things so much easier for me tovisualize.
I'm just a very visual personand I've started to learn that
if I, you know, formulate myspreadsheets a certain way,
suddenly I feel like I'm in thedriver's seat.
If you're doing stuff with data, well I understand if it's not
(18:56):
for you and I'll give you a pass.
But that kind of combinesGoogle Sheets combines really
well with the next one, which isGoogle Forms.
So forms are a way to solicitinformation from people and the
value of that is that you cansurvey.
(19:16):
So we do stuff internally withthese.
So, for example, I set up aboutfour years ago.
I set up a system for us tosubmit KPIs, which are key
performance indicators, andthere's seven different teams at
Punchmark, or eight really, butseven different teams and each
(19:38):
team is responsible to submittheir KPIs every Tuesday morning
and we do that through a Googleform those form.
Each team has their own Googleform and each form is tailored
to have the KPIs that that teamhas.
Those forms dump theirinformation, the results, you
(20:01):
might say, into the same sheetso you can format these forms in
these sheets to either beindependent or to go into
different tabs of the same sheet.
So that is pretty cool becausethat way it's completely hands
(20:22):
free and the longer you use thesame system, the stronger and
better the data gets, which ispretty neat.
I started I built the KPI systemwhen you know, back in, I think
, 2020 or 2021.
And I kind of like built it.
I was sort of like figuringthings out and now it turns out
(20:46):
it was the right way to do itbecause you're very easily able
in Sheets to createvisualizations out of the data
submissions.
So I have, you know, our entirecompany's, I guess, kpis and
data all formulated onto adashboard which I use to present
(21:08):
to the C-suite at Punchmark andit's all pretty much automated
at this point.
It does take a little bit ofupkeep.
Every couple of months and alsoat the end of every year I have
to, I usually spend about two,three days where I completely
have to build the next year'skind of submission forming.
(21:29):
I'm sure I could find a way toautomate that, but I don't
really know how to do it.
But the forms are great.
One reason why you might notchoose to use a Google Form is
if, again, if you have HubSpotor I think Salesforce is another
one.
We don't use Salesforce, but ifyou have HubSpot, it might be
best to have a form that pipesright into HubSpot and attaches
(21:53):
it in one spot.
There is value and advantagesto having things submitted into
one spot.
However, for me, I find thatforms are so malleable that I
don't mind just spinning up acouple of new ones, all right,
(22:15):
and then the last is going to beGoogle Slides, and these are
just PowerPoints.
So Microsoft PowerPoint is thepaid version and Google Slides
is the free version.
And Slides.
That is how we create all ofour slide decks at Punchmark.
It is so easy to use.
I have a Punchmark boilerplatetemplate that we all built, you
(22:39):
know, a while ago, and all Ihave to do is duplicate out of
that and I'm ready to go in.
You know 10 seconds, and that'sa pretty advantageous thing.
I find that the quicker andfaster you are able to get
started, the more harmonious and, I guess, fluent, you feel so
(23:00):
slides.
It's very simple.
I always just recommend thatyou set up a good template that
is branded appropriately.
I sometimes just use a allblack template, just straight.
All black, white text with apunch mark logo on the bottom
left.
I use that for really strippeddown internal presentations.
But however you want to do, itis definitely totally up to you.
(23:23):
So all of that to explain.
Maybe we can talk about how thiscould be used in a project.
So I've talked about our KPIsystems and how we use it in
Vendor Vault, but maybe I'lljust attach a couple more.
At Punchmark we have theinformal rule of no internal
(23:46):
emails, so everything internalmeaning team member to team
member, needs to be communicatedthrough Slack.
That's how we use it.
However, I do find that Gmailis the best way for us to work
with all of our partners and forme to CC everybody effectively.
(24:07):
So we communicate externallywith everybody through Gmail and
then, when it comes tocollaborating internally or
externally, we do it throughDrive.
Drive is the overarchingumbrella that everything sits
under, and this is free as well.
You can set up folders insideof Drive that are project-based,
(24:28):
so inside of a folder you canhave another entire hierarchy of
subfolders, and that's prettycool, and you can have more and
more subfolders available to youand those folders can always be
permission protected.
So if you're working onsomething sensitive and it's
important that you keep certainthings private or above a
(24:51):
certain level of clearance, well, that's pretty easy to do.
All you have to do is just makeit so that it's invite access
only and then control who getsinvited.
Google Docs are pretty coolbecause we use that to write out
our documents and write thebase copy for anything.
You can also set things up sothat they're formatted in the
(25:12):
most raw, stripped down,unformatted version of copy,
which makes it easy to mold indifferent things, whether that's
the punchmark blog editor, I'vebeen writing tons of punchmark
blogs for a different projectI've been on and with those,
every single one of those blogsstarts in Google Docs.
Google Sheets is great becauseit allows you to stay organized.
(25:35):
When I went to launch thiscampaign I recently was working
on with Ross, the entirestep-by-step process was
outlined in Google Sheets and weknew what we were going to do.
On one tab was the checkpoints.
On the next tab it was theorganization of the content.
On the next tab.
We had just a spreadsheet thatwas like kind of storyboarding
(25:58):
and ideas and like, also justlike internal checklists,
because you know, sometimes youneed a spot to just throw things
.
And those sheets we keep in aGoogle Drive he's kind of
getting my points on this one.
And forms work really great withsheets.
Forms can pipe right intosheets on the same tab or you
(26:19):
can export all your informationinto a different one.
What I've used Google Forms forwhen it came to in the loop was
actually for our entries to ourgiveaways.
You complete a Google form andthen that information sometimes
(26:40):
goes into a spreadsheet and thenI'm able to take that
information, export it and thenrandomly draw from that
information and then finallyslides that's more presentation
of information.
And then finally slides that'smore presentation of information
.
And what's cool about that isthat you don't need to have it
on a thumb drive or anythinglike that.
You can always just share itdirectly with that person and
(27:03):
then revoke access if you everwant to.
And that's how we makeeverybody submit their
presentations at our clientworkshop in Charlotte, north
Carolina is.
A lot of times we prefer peopleshare us their Google Slides.
I think it's one of those steps.
That is a major undertaking forany company.
(27:26):
However, cloud-based information, especially when it comes to
collaboration, is what you needthese days and I would highly
recommend, if you haven't triedit, maybe consider it.
Punchmark is on it, we love it.
Anytime someone comes in,they're like, oh, how come you
don't use Google Docs, so howcome you don't use the Microsoft
(27:50):
Suite?
And I'm just like, oh, come on,let me tell you, and I feel
very strongly about it.
I'd recommend you try it out.
If you have any questions,maybe shoot me an email, michael
at punchmarkcom, and that is aGmail.
Thanks, everybody.
I think that's where we'llleave it.
I appreciate you listening tome ramble about how much I love
(28:13):
G Suite.
And yeah, this episode wasbrought to you by Punchmark and
produced and hosted by me,michael Burpo.
This episode was edited by PaulSuarez with music by Ross
Cockrum.
Don't forget to rate thepodcast on Spotify and Apple
Podcasts.
It's the best way to help usgrow Bye.
Welcome to In the Loop email or an AOL email.
I'm going to scream.
It is time for you to get onthe G Suite bandwagon.
I've been on it for years.
All of Punchmark is run off ofthe G Suite, which I'll get into
, but it's primarily part ofGoogle Drive, gmail, google
(00:38):
Sheets, google Docs, googleSlides and Google Forms.
I'd recommend you just take alook or sit back and I'll
explain the value of each ofthem and why I use them and why
I prefer that over, for example,the Microsoft suite.
All right, let's enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the
jewelry industry's favoritewebsite platform and digital
growth agency.
Our mission reaches way beyondtechnology.
With decades of experience andlong-lasting industry
relationships, punchmark enablesjewelry businesses to flourish
in any marketplace.
We consider our clients ourfriends, as many of them have
(01:20):
been friends way before becomingclients.
Punchmark's own success comesfrom the fact that we have a
much deeper need and obligationto help our friends succeed.
Whether you're looking forbetter e-commerce performance,
business growth or campaignsthat drive traffic and sales,
punchmark's website andmarketing services were made
just for you.
It's never too late totransform your business and
(01:42):
stitch together your digital andphysical worlds in a way that
achieves tremendous growth andresults.
Schedule a guided demo today atpunchmarkcom.
Slash go.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And now back to the show.
Okay, everybody.
So, like I mentioned in theintro, this is going to be about
the G Suite.
That's what I'm referring to it, as that is Google's suite of
products and they all workreally well together.
(02:14):
What I'm primarily referring tois Gmail.
It is the industry standard andvery, very much understood to
be the industry standard.
It's free and all of thesetools are free.
You pretty much access it witha Gmail.
Google Drive, which is sort oflike a Dropbox, but it connects
(02:36):
and contains all of the filesfor the other ones.
Google Docs, which is sort oflike Microsoft Word, except it's
cloud-based.
Google Sheets, which is justlike Excel.
This is the only one which Iwill accept people using
Microsoft Excel for certaininstances.
If you're like really deep intomaking pivot tables and data
(02:56):
and stuff like that.
Google Forms, which is theindustry standard.
I honestly recommend usingGoogle Forms over any other form
.
Unless you have a CMS likeHubSpot, then maybe it makes
sense to pipe it into your CMS,but I would recommend Google
Forms for any other reason.
(03:17):
And Google Slides, which isjust like a slideshow Microsoft
PowerPoint, essentially.
So let's get into each of them.
I want to start at Gmail.
Gmail is the industry standardand what I recommend off of that
is that you immediately get alot more.
(03:37):
I don't want to say respect,but you're understood to be
legitimate if you email with aGmail.
The reason why is the spamcatching and the ability to
prevent bots from using Gmailsis a lot higher than, for
example, these more defunct oneslike AOLcom.
(03:58):
So the reason why you know it'sa Gmail is your email is going
to end in gmailcom or you canactually overwrite that and have
it be based off of your domainand this is like a business
version so you can use.
For example, all of Punchmark'sstuff is at punchmarkcom and a
(04:22):
lot of our businesses have that.
I believe it costs a little bitof money and you have to own
the domain.
However, I recommend you justmake a Gmail.
If you don't yet have a Gmail,I'd recommend that you make one,
because it takes two secondsand it's free and it will get
you access to the other parts ofit.
So the other parts about itthat I really like is it has
(04:46):
really high deliverability.
Again, google is the industrystandard for man a lot of things
, and with that comes they havea really high ability to sniff
out bots and spam.
Their spam catchers are thehighest in the industry.
You can have add-ons that willcatch even more spam, but what
(05:09):
that means is you're less likelyto get phished.
And what I've been doing foryears is sometimes I go into my
spam, you know, once a month,once every couple months, just
to see if anything got caught byspam that you know maybe I'd
need, and I have never prettymuch ever found some spam that
(05:29):
was supposed to be a realdeliverable.
So with that I find that itreally gives you the sense of
legitimacy and I genuinelybelieve that their service and
their ability to connect emailsand forward stuff to each other
is so much higher than againlike a Hotmail.
(05:50):
Not that I don't think that itworks for you and I understand
the fact that you might beattached to your Hotmail, but I
do believe that Gmail is thestandard and I have like five
Gmails.
I use one only for signing upfor free accounts.
That one I only use because youknow you get put into their
(06:15):
marketing system, the differentmarketing systems, and I don't
want that.
Going to my work email I have awork email.
I have a professional one formy life outside of work.
I have one that I only use fortesting things, for Punchmark,
so that one I only use when itcomes to testing email sequences
(06:38):
to get pushed there.
So I would recommend that youat least look into getting a
Gmail.
If you own a domain, you have awebsite for your jewelry store,
that you consider setting upall of your emails through there
.
Okay, that's enough on Gmail.
I highly recommend it.
Let's talk about Drive, googleDrive.
(06:58):
So Google Drive is one of thosethings I actually got into when
I was in college.
We organize all of our workthrough Google Drive.
The reason why I recommendGoogle Drive is that, again,
it's cloud-based, which meansthat everything can be edited
all at once, with all of thedifferent edits being synced, so
(07:22):
you can actually have multiplepeople in the Google Drive or on
the same documents and they'llbe syncing in real time.
And what that is really greatabout is, for example, if you're
using Dropbox and you have allthese Microsoft documents,
people can be editing and thensomeone might have another
(07:43):
version and then they merge andthen one gets overwritten and
suddenly all that work was lost,which happens a lot.
I highly recommend, if you'redoing something collaborative,
you consider working with aGoogle Drive.
It's super easy to figure out.
It kind of the utility of itdoesn't reveal itself until you
(08:07):
start working with two otherpeople and then suddenly it's
like, wow, this is really useful.
And what's really nice about it, too, is that you can also work
and collaborate outside of yourorganization.
So we use to give you an idea,we use Google Drive as a
organizational tool for when wework on the vendor vault, which
(08:30):
we've talked about before in thepast on In the Loop.
It is our publication forPunchmark.
When you work on a publication,oh my gosh, you are constantly
working on different sheets anddocuments all at the same time.
Everybody needs to know what'sgoing on.
Edits are coming in all thetime and if you were working on
(08:50):
a document and putting it up,well, suddenly I had one time
someone was working on an entireintro for this magazine I was
working on in college and theyspent like an entire day on it.
One person hit Command S andsaved on top of that sheet while
they had closed it down and itwiped an entire day's work on it
(09:14):
and let me say it was not greatfor our team cohesion.
People were very upset.
But with a Google document orwith a drive, that would be
totally taken care of.
Again, it's free and a greatpart of it is.
Sometimes in the past I'veworked on these big, expansive
projects with outsidecontractors.
(09:37):
For example, I've talked aboutStephanie Momont Rhodes and she
was a editor, a copy editor forus, and what I like about that
is that I can just give heraccess to a, I guess, a smaller
folder and she can add all ofthe copy into that folder
(09:57):
without ever getting access toany of the other assets or
anything like that, so she canonly see what I've allowed her
to see, which is the copy.
And that way it keeps the scopea lot more controlled.
And not that I'm ever worriedabout that, but it can be
helpful, especially if you'reworking on sensitive things.
(10:19):
At Punchmark, as I've startedto climb in the leadership roles
a lot of the times, the easiestway to onboard someone is you
just add them by email to theappropriate level of, I guess,
permissions to the Google Drive.
(10:39):
And when I got promoted todirector, well, suddenly you
have access to the directorsection of the Google Drive as
opposed to having to send them.
You know an entire zip folderwith a ton of different
documents and suddenly it's kindof sensitive, because what if
they took it and they forwardedit over to someone?
Well, in Google Drive they'rejust in there and they can't
(11:03):
really share anything externallyotherwise.
So that's Google Drive.
I really like it.
It's kind of like theconnective ligaments between
everything.
It's where everything sits.
I personally don't like Dropbox.
It's too stagnant and clunkyfor me.
But I can see how people likeit, dropbox.
(11:25):
The benefit to it is that youdon't have to.
I think it's cheaper when itcomes to the cost of the.
It's cheaper when it comes tothe cost of the data that's in
there.
In Drive, you can quickly rackup expensive charges if you're
putting like terabytes ofinformation files in there, like
(11:45):
if you're working in reallylarge photographs that you know
you might have a photograph thatis 100 gigabytes large.
You know if it was shot in rawor 50 gigabytes, and it might be
a suite of them or an entirephoto shoot, in which case that
is going to take up a lot ofcloud information and suddenly
(12:05):
you're getting charged.
You know a little bit of money,but if you're not working in
raw, well, you don't really haveto worry about that.
Ok, let's talk about GoogleDocuments.
This one.
I probably use Google Documentsevery hour of every single day.
I work at Punchmark.
(12:27):
I'm constantly in DocumentsThings I love about it.
It's exactly like Word.
Microsoft Word is theforebringer.
However, google Docs iscloud-based.
Microsoft Word is usuallytethered to your account and
Microsoft Word costs money.
So there you go.
Word is backwards compatible,so you can actually import docs
(12:51):
into Word and it'll work exactlythe same.
However, it's kind of hard toswitch it back.
It kind of freezes it in time,if you will, and it allows for
multiple people to dynamicallyedit the same document.
Why is that good?
Well, have you ever worked on areally long document and then
(13:12):
suddenly you're working and youoverwrite on top of people?
Well, this makes it so thatsomeone can be working on the
intro and someone could beworking on the outro, and it
doesn't even matter.
You can see their cursorjumping around.
It's very collaborative and Ipersonally, I use Google Docs
every single time I write a blogpost.
I start in Google Docs.
(13:33):
It has a great spell checker init.
I know that sounds so dumb, butI think it's the best out there
.
It's way more effective thanwriting in Slack, and I think
Docs is.
If I write any copy.
I just share the document withpeople and I have a new system
that goes along with it.
One of the things I do with mydocs is I sometimes set the docs
(13:59):
to be, I guess, comment onlymode.
So instead of people being ableto edit what I wrote, they can
only leave comments, and thecomment system requires a little
getting used to, but Isometimes do that.
For example, I wrote the yearin review for Punchmark.
The document was like 5,000words long and it was really
(14:24):
took a lot of time, and then Ishared it with everybody at the
company.
But instead of letting anyoneedit it directly, I asked that
they all commented their edits,and that way I knew, you know,
hey, this is a grammatical edit,no problem, I'll just approve
it.
But if people try to reformatit, well, I had to approve that.
(14:45):
Yes, it's a little bitcontrolling, but it makes it so
that I don't have to ensurewe're all on the same page.
Sometimes I can just be like no, that's just not the way that
we're going to format things.
All right, everybody, we'regoing to take a quick break and
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And now back to the show.
And we're back.
(16:19):
I know the flow and if you comein and try to, you know, switch
things up drastically.
Well, let's talk about it first.
It's a little bit more control.
I think that Docs is amazing.
It also allows you to embedimages really well and I find it
super awesome for that, and youcan actually import Google Docs
(16:40):
into things like Confluence,which we use to write our
knowledge base, and you canattach them to readme documents
and things like that.
I'm just a huge fan of GoogleDocs.
If you can't tell, I find itextremely helpful.
It is industry standard, waybetter than Microsoft documents
(17:03):
or whatever, so I am a big fan.
All right, let's talk aboutSheets.
And as excited as I am forMicrosoft, for Google Docs, I'm
even more excited for GoogleSheets.
I think that Google Sheets areincredible.
Sheets are the Excel version,so you know lots of cells and
(17:26):
tables, tables, and the onething I will say about it is it
is good for about 75 to 85% ofeverything you want to do with a
sheet.
There are some people who don't,who wouldn't want to use Google
Sheets, and for those people Iunderstand you can't really do
(17:50):
these advanced formulas andmergings and pivot tables quite
as much, and I actually asked myvendor liaison, kimberly, why
she prefers to use MicrosoftExcel and the reason why she's
(18:10):
explained it is that there's alot of formatting and VLOOKUPs
and pivot tables that she canuse to find the issues with data
files a lot easier.
Personally, that kind of goes alittle bit over my head.
I don't understand.
I use it for organizingprojects and project outlines a
(18:32):
lot because I find that puttingthings into a spreadsheet makes
things so much easier for me tovisualize.
I'm just a very visual personand I've started to learn that
if I, you know, formulate myspreadsheets a certain way,
suddenly I feel like I'm in thedriver's seat.
If you're doing stuff with data, well I understand if it's not
(18:56):
for you and I'll give you a pass.
But that kind of combinesGoogle Sheets combines really
well with the next one, which isGoogle Forms.
So forms are a way to solicitinformation from people and the
value of that is that you cansurvey.
(19:16):
So we do stuff internally withthese.
So, for example, I set up aboutfour years ago.
I set up a system for us tosubmit KPIs, which are key
performance indicators, andthere's seven different teams at
Punchmark, or eight really, butseven different teams and each
(19:38):
team is responsible to submittheir KPIs every Tuesday morning
and we do that through a Googleform those form.
Each team has their own Googleform and each form is tailored
to have the KPIs that that teamhas.
Those forms dump theirinformation, the results, you
(20:01):
might say, into the same sheetso you can format these forms in
these sheets to either beindependent or to go into
different tabs of the same sheet.
So that is pretty cool becausethat way it's completely hands
(20:22):
free and the longer you use thesame system, the stronger and
better the data gets, which ispretty neat.
I started I built the KPI systemwhen you know, back in, I think
, 2020 or 2021.
And I kind of like built it.
I was sort of like figuringthings out and now it turns out
(20:46):
it was the right way to do itbecause you're very easily able
in Sheets to createvisualizations out of the data
submissions.
So I have, you know, our entirecompany's, I guess, kpis and
data all formulated onto adashboard which I use to present
(21:08):
to the C-suite at Punchmark andit's all pretty much automated
at this point.
It does take a little bit ofupkeep.
Every couple of months and alsoat the end of every year I have
to, I usually spend about two,three days where I completely
have to build the next year'skind of submission forming.
(21:29):
I'm sure I could find a way toautomate that, but I don't
really know how to do it.
But the forms are great.
One reason why you might notchoose to use a Google Form is
if, again, if you have HubSpotor I think Salesforce is another
one.
We don't use Salesforce, but ifyou have HubSpot, it might be
best to have a form that pipesright into HubSpot and attaches
(21:53):
it in one spot.
There is value and advantagesto having things submitted into
one spot.
However, for me, I find thatforms are so malleable that I
don't mind just spinning up acouple of new ones, all right,
(22:15):
and then the last is going to beGoogle Slides, and these are
just PowerPoints.
So Microsoft PowerPoint is thepaid version and Google Slides
is the free version.
And Slides.
That is how we create all ofour slide decks at Punchmark.
It is so easy to use.
I have a Punchmark boilerplatetemplate that we all built, you
(22:39):
know, a while ago, and all Ihave to do is duplicate out of
that and I'm ready to go in.
You know 10 seconds, and that'sa pretty advantageous thing.
I find that the quicker andfaster you are able to get
started, the more harmonious and, I guess, fluent, you feel so
(23:00):
slides.
It's very simple.
I always just recommend thatyou set up a good template that
is branded appropriately.
I sometimes just use a allblack template, just straight.
All black, white text with apunch mark logo on the bottom
left.
I use that for really strippeddown internal presentations.
But however you want to do, itis definitely totally up to you.
(23:23):
So all of that to explain.
Maybe we can talk about how thiscould be used in a project.
So I've talked about our KPIsystems and how we use it in
Vendor Vault, but maybe I'lljust attach a couple more.
At Punchmark we have theinformal rule of no internal
(23:46):
emails, so everything internalmeaning team member to team
member, needs to be communicatedthrough Slack.
That's how we use it.
However, I do find that Gmailis the best way for us to work
with all of our partners and forme to CC everybody effectively.
(24:07):
So we communicate externallywith everybody through Gmail and
then, when it comes tocollaborating internally or
externally, we do it throughDrive.
Drive is the overarchingumbrella that everything sits
under, and this is free as well.
You can set up folders insideof Drive that are project-based,
(24:28):
so inside of a folder you canhave another entire hierarchy of
subfolders, and that's prettycool, and you can have more and
more subfolders available to youand those folders can always be
permission protected.
So if you're working onsomething sensitive and it's
important that you keep certainthings private or above a
(24:51):
certain level of clearance, well, that's pretty easy to do.
All you have to do is just makeit so that it's invite access
only and then control who getsinvited.
Google Docs are pretty coolbecause we use that to write out
our documents and write thebase copy for anything.
You can also set things up sothat they're formatted in the
(25:12):
most raw, stripped down,unformatted version of copy,
which makes it easy to mold indifferent things, whether that's
the punchmark blog editor, I'vebeen writing tons of punchmark
blogs for a different projectI've been on and with those,
every single one of those blogsstarts in Google Docs.
Google Sheets is great becauseit allows you to stay organized.
(25:35):
When I went to launch thiscampaign I recently was working
on with Ross, the entirestep-by-step process was
outlined in Google Sheets and weknew what we were going to do.
On one tab was the checkpoints.
On the next tab it was theorganization of the content.
On the next tab.
We had just a spreadsheet thatwas like kind of storyboarding
(25:58):
and ideas and like, also justlike internal checklists,
because you know, sometimes youneed a spot to just throw things
.
And those sheets we keep in aGoogle Drive he's kind of
getting my points on this one.
And forms work really great withsheets.
Forms can pipe right intosheets on the same tab or you
(26:19):
can export all your informationinto a different one.
What I've used Google Forms forwhen it came to in the loop was
actually for our entries to ourgiveaways.
You complete a Google form andthen that information sometimes
(26:40):
goes into a spreadsheet and thenI'm able to take that
information, export it and thenrandomly draw from that
information and then finallyslides that's more presentation
of information.
And then finally slides that'smore presentation of information
.
And what's cool about that isthat you don't need to have it
on a thumb drive or anythinglike that.
You can always just share itdirectly with that person and
(27:03):
then revoke access if you everwant to.
And that's how we makeeverybody submit their
presentations at our clientworkshop in Charlotte, north
Carolina is.
A lot of times we prefer peopleshare us their Google Slides.
I think it's one of those steps.
That is a major undertaking forany company.
(27:26):
However, cloud-based information, especially when it comes to
collaboration, is what you needthese days and I would highly
recommend, if you haven't triedit, maybe consider it.
Punchmark is on it, we love it.
Anytime someone comes in,they're like, oh, how come you
don't use Google Docs, so howcome you don't use the Microsoft
(27:50):
Suite?
And I'm just like, oh, come on,let me tell you, and I feel
very strongly about it.
I'd recommend you try it out.
If you have any questions,maybe shoot me an email, michael
at punchmarkcom, and that is aGmail.
Thanks, everybody.
I think that's where we'llleave it.
I appreciate you listening tome ramble about how much I love
(28:13):
G Suite.
And yeah, this episode wasbrought to you by Punchmark and
produced and hosted by me,michael Burpo.
This episode was edited by PaulSuarez with music by Ross
Cockrum.
Don't forget to rate thepodcast on Spotify and Apple
Podcasts.
It's the best way to help usgrow Bye.
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