COVER CONTINUED ...
us. This made me wonder what would happen to my business while I’m away, so I evaluated the questions I asked earlier in this article and found that — at best — I got a C- grade for preparedness. Recognizing this, I went into overdrive to become prepared. I had meetings with management, sales, and marketing to give instructions and empower people more than I had before. After the surgery for the biopsy, my wife was checking in daily (sometimes multiple times per day) for the results. Finally, we came in, and the nurse said what no parent wants to hear: “I have the results, but I can’t share them with you. The doctor wants to speak with you in person tomorrow morning.” Previous test results had been delivered over the phone, so this could only mean one thing: bad news. I did my best to mentally prepare for this life- changing news. I researched the best lymphoma doctors in America and learned all I could about chemotherapy. I comforted my wife and tried not to break down, myself. I prayed and begged for mercy. I can’t remember the last time I was that scared.
I was speechless. The doctor had also ruled out an autoimmune disease. My prayers were answered. Ultimately, the doctor wanted to see us to tell us he didn’t know what was wrong with Kellen, and he was referring us out. Cruel if you ask me, but I’ll take the good news. As of today, we still don’t know what is causing Kellen’s symptoms, and we’re seeing more doctors to figure it out. But my guess is that whatever is causing his symptoms, it is unlikely to be worse than cancer. For me, this is a very personal story and hard to share. From an emotional standpoint, this wasn’t easy for me to write. But my desire for everyone reading this is twofold: 1. Go hug and kiss your loved ones today. We are not promised tomorrow. 2. Look at your business and plan for what would happen if you weren’t there next week, next month, or for the next six months.
Weeks went by with the threat of cancer and an autoimmune disease hanging over our heads. Then the doctor called again and told us they wanted to perform a biopsy on one of Kellen’s swollen lymph nodes. The doctor told us, “You need to be prepared for this to be cancer.” We prepped for surgery a few days later, and after doing some research, I realized that if this was cancer, our family had a long road ahead of
I know this topic isn’t as fun as hearing about my next marketing campaign or the new product I’m creating, but if you
KEEP YOUR TEAM MEMBERS ON THE SAME PAGE –Shaun We arrived at the doctor’s office the next morning, and of course, he was running late. After a long wait, he told us Kellen was cancer-free. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to ask why he made us wait to give us good news, but for maybe the first time in my life, get the last-minute call that a loved one needs you to drop everything, you’ll be happy you’re prepared.
RESOURCE OF THE MONTH
With Trello Project Management Software
Organization within a company is extremely valuable for keeping the team aware of what’s happening with projects, campaigns, and client accounts every step of the way. On the other hand, when projects are disorganized, it can lead to uncompleted tasks and frustration. Tracking and prioritizing complex projects can be a bit tricky, so we’ve turned our management and marketing teams to Trello. What Is Trello? Trello is an online dashboard for organizing collaborative projects. With its board system, you won’t have to keep multiple spreadsheets and documents open at once to know what’s going on with any given project. Trello allows you to see at a glance who’s working on what and where something
to riffle through a plethora of emails to find the latest update for their marketing campaign, nor will you have to track someone down in the office to find an answer. Simply click the project card in Trello, and all team entries can be viewed instantly. Don’t be discouraged by the number of people working on your project, either — there isn’t a member cap. You can include everyone on the team if you’d like. Each member will have access to everything on the board at once, and anyone can update descriptions, due dates, checklists, and comments. Prioritization for the Win Prioritizing a project is now easier than ever. With a click and drag, you’ll be able to move entire boards or adjust the priority of a project your team is working on. By prioritizing and organizing your projects (by color tags or placement level on a board’s lists), you’ll let your team know what has fallen to the back burner, what has been finished, and which projects need immediate attention.
You can create checklists, color code and name the boards, add detailed notes, activate due dates,
and individually comment on each project. All team interactions are recorded for the duration of the project. You can even adjust your project subscription settings to be notified about every change or to just receive summaries of changes periodically throughout the day. With unlimited boards, lists, cards, and team members, the organizational possibilities are endless. Before we discovered Trello, The Newsletter Pro Marketing team used Google Sheets to keep all their project and campaign information organized. It was a huge pain to adjust priorities — delete cells, add rows, and copy and paste information. But our processes were streamlined once we switched to Trello. It’s very simple to move items, update information, and get everyone together on a single project. If you’re eager to try, the initial platform is free. You can check it out for yourself at Trello.com.
is in the overall process. Collaboration!
One of the best features about Trello is that it’s made for collaboration. Viewing every aspect of a project at your fingertips is its specialty. Your team won’t have
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