In this episode, I talk to Kyle Heath of Kimbley IT about how using GSuite in your small business is becoming more prevalent. Google’s GSuite is the modern toolkit of many businesses. We go into why it’s so good and how it stacks up against Office 365.
In this episode we cover:
- Why GSuite?
- What do other office packages lack?
- Why are we still printing application forms to sign?!
- Ransomware
- Love Island?!
Using GSuite in Your Small Business
Previous Episode: How To Choose Your VA Services
You can find Kyle on LinkedIn and his business KimbleyIT using the links below:
Transcript
Mark Smith
Hello, and welcome to Episode Four of the journey to be a podcast. On this episode, I’ve got Kyle heap of Kimberly it, where we discuss Google’s G Suite and how it can help your business ransomware and IT security and even for in a little bit, I love Ireland at the end to enjoy. Yeah, thanks for coming on. Thanks for coming on the show first guest. I had. Yeah, I just really wanted to talk to you about Google, you’re probably the biggest advocate of Google and this suite of tools that I know on LinkedIn on anywhere, in fact, and James will say for his. So yeah, I was just interested to know a bit about kind of you and your background and why you’re such an avid fan Really?
Kyle Heath
Okay, well, the reason, the reason I’m an avid fan is I’ve been 20 years working in it, that’s a long time helping people with computers that go wrong. Well, most of that time, I mean, was talking from 1998 onwards was Microsoft very much did some people out of Mac here and there, but it’s mainly Microsoft. And back in those days, computers broke lots all the time. So years and years, I call it with people who are frustrated with computers, and rightly so when the whole cloud thing kicked off, maybe 1015 years ago, you started to see that there might be an alternative to computers breaking all the time. And that has gradually grown and grown into the platform that Google provide, which was Google worm work, apps and Apps for Work. And now it’s g sweet. And this whole cloud thing that you hear about works all the time. And that’s why I love it so much. Because it means people don’t have computers breaking on them, which means they don’t give me a hard time, which means they’re happy, and I’m happy.
That’s the honest truth.
I particularly love I have for Google organisation. I mean, I think the things that they do look pretty, they get some nice fonts. And I think they’ve got a bit of an eye for design. But you know, are they any different Airbnb and Uber and Monsanto? Anybody else? Probably not, though. That’s Google Voice that someone calling me on Google Voice now so and it turned them off.
But it’s changed.
And that’s off now. There you go. That’s what happens when you record.
Stuff happens, right?
Mark Smith
Okay. We’re done. We’re done it now. podcasters
Kyle Heath
never bought a new one to find.
Mark Smith
Yeah, and all that online stuff, and just having access to everything everywhere. That’s kind of the main reason I went for it. So like you I’ve worked in an office for not supported in it. But I worked in an office for 1515 to 18 years and everywhere just had Microsoft Office. And whilst they have moved into their cloud, it’s I don’t feel like they’re anywhere near Google in terms of their offering.
Kyle Heath
Yeah, I know what you mean about that with 365365. Scott, its place Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes people will say, Oh, it’s Google vs. Microsoft night kind of thing. You can do a decent job with 365, or nothing against the products at all. If you do it right, it’ll turn out give a decent solution for people. Is it originally built in the cloud up? No, it wasn’t it was added on by Microsoft after Google did it. And I think that’s the real significant difference. And the problem Microsoft guys, that’s what was office out, you know, you’re talking sometime late, late 1980s. It’s so embedded in the psyche of so many people at a certain age. There’s installed on your computer, and it looks like this, that to get them to do anything else. Tough, really, really tough. I think Microsoft gonna have a big problem, no matter how technologically smart they get, getting rid of that legacy, that people want it their way.
Mark Smith
Yeah, it’s almost like they need a new product to replace it to get rid of some of the kind of embedded ideas and experiences people have had with that software. Because yet you expected to do a certain thing and look a certain way. And I just don’t think not for a couple of generations time that anybody’s going to ever be able to change that. What was they still kind of name it Word, Excel and all that stuff? Yeah.
Kyle Heath
Yes, exactly. That’s exactly what I think as well. I speak to people who use 365 guys in the industry, do other IT support Microsoft side. And they just tell me, that’s the thing. People want to instal it on their computer. And that’s what they expect to find it and trying to get them to switch to the web versions is really, really difficult to just want to do it. The easiest thing for people to do is not force people to change, but against the backdrop. So they do it. Yeah, you carry on doing it the way you did it. Nothing really progressive. Whereas if you switch to Google, you have a choice. Yeah.
Mark Smith
Yeah, exactly. And one thing about the and this wasn’t supposed to be a Google vs. Microsoft at all. But one thing about the office packages, there’s you lose a significant amount of functionality when you use their online versions. So excel in particular, I spent a lot of time developing macros for. Yeah. And that stuff just doesn’t work in the same way, when it’s online, or even sat in SharePoint, for instance, the Microsoft’s own little cloud system that’s usually inside of organisations. And whereas at least Google was only ever built in the cloud, and therefore works exactly as its intended the way people wanted to. And I think that’s a massive issue, too. Yeah, it is tightly with Excel, people build things in Excel, you say, there’s a lot of macros in there in customizations, and then they moved into the cloud version of it. And the functionality isn’t there. In that version, it’s a pared down version of Excel. And therefore they don’t do it, they go back again. So even if you’ve got a willing set, people wanting to do that, they’re not necessarily going to find it easy to do.
Kyle Heath
You mentioned the swear word of SharePoint.
I don’t know anybody who loves SharePoint, but probably the SharePoint development team and someone whose job is to look after the bloody thing. It’s it was there was never any fun. I tried to use it for years and years. And previous businesses tried to make SharePoint works. The concept of it made a lot of sense years ago, your your web browser and you check stuff in and check it out on that. And it all made a lot of sense. But it’s just ugly in the way it works. just doesn’t work nicely. It’s not beautiful. And I don’t think it I still don’t think it is I mean, I admit I don’t use on a regular basis and stuff. So I wouldn’t run 100%. But I figure it probably won’t change much.
Mark Smith
Yeah, I mean, I was using it as recently as February this year. And it’s still considering it is supposed to look like an online based platform. It’s just clunky. It doesn’t operate the way you expect something in a browser to operate. And I think that’s its biggest issue. It’s really difficult to learn as well.
Kyle Heath
Oh, yeah, there it is. It’s really complicated. It’s procedural. It’s everything you want it to kind of everything you don’t want to want the business to be. It’s very corporate, very procedural, very old fashioned. And it’s not what a lot of people in a modern business want, which is flexibility, simplicity, and, and being able to work internally with things And isn’t that.
Mark Smith
Yeah, exactly. So we came, I put a post out a couple of weeks ago, and I think I was just talking about what absolutely how I use organise my workload and to do list and stuff like that. And you came with Google Keep, I think, and I’d never heard of that. And so I’m just wondering, outside of the basic platforms, or tools, such as sheets and docs and stuff like that, what else is there that potentially me and other GC g sweet users are missing, or not paying enough attention to because Google don’t necessarily put it on the forefront?
Kyle Heath
Yeah, that that’s one that came up recently, there’s one that’s a real hidden gem, and that Google drawings, drawing drawings enables you to do things like organisational charts, office plans, flow diagrams, that kind of thing. It’s Google’s equivalent of that kind of product. And it’s buried away inside Google Drive when you go for a file new. And you can do a different type of document out there. You can go for a new and go down to more, and you’ll see you get Google drawings. And it’s quietly sleep slid away there by Google not doing anything, and use Google drawing near you clicking on it, now. You’ll be able to do flow diagram, you’ll have a look, and you’ll see what it is. It’s the kind of thing that lets you do those diagrams and it hidden away. And instead it’ll be it really is. That’s a cracker. And above it is forms of forms in Google, a little bit more well known forms, it will appear a little bit more often. But one thing that if anybody follows me on LinkedIn, they’ll see that James and I absolutely cannot stand PDF forms, Word documents that claiming to be forms that you have to fill in, when you buy mortgage insurance, anything like that broadband order, and people send you these forms, you’ve got print of right on scan in an email back. Yeah, we refuse to do now. We’re starting to refuse to do them and refuse to do business with people who send them to us, which in a bit of a ways, like biting your nose off to spite your face, because you can go good deal and some and you’re going to say no. But we figured that if we don’t start saying no to people, then no, nothing will ever change. With us a Google form, you can create a really nice easy way for somebody just to enter the data that you want. It’s captured straight into a Google Sheet. So you’ve got it in a spreadsheet for easy use. And all I have to do is go online and do it once I have to print anything off and after mess around trying to download word and important Google Docs and all and it still doesn’t work and all that kind of rubbish.
Mark Smith
Yeah. And the thing is, these days, they can automate that stuff, right? If you’re signing up for something, or you inquired about something, they can just pick up that link link to that exact form. And it’s just there in your inbox, that is a far less effort than it takes to print everything out there and post it to you, etc, etc.
Kyle Heath
I’ve had this conversation on broadband before had a broadband order form come over, we use apartment for that comes over, and it’s got all the details for the customer to fill in. It’s just like, Who’s the contact? What’s the address, things like that? And I’m like, why can’t put this in a form that then puts it in a sheet that then automatically puts that into a PDF? With your branding and all your details that automatically emails it with electronic signature programme to me for me to sign you can do that. I said to the MD, you can do that. It’s not complicated. I’m not even selling it to tell you you just like this stuff together. Yeah, he said, I know. But, you know, I like the paper forms are ultimately what they’re saying to can’t be asked.
customer.
Mark Smith
Yeah, so it comes down to laziness, people, we’ve always done it this way. And therefore it will remain that way until someone else takes over.
Kyle Heath
It’s a shame, because they don’t realise that when when you’re about to make an order a commitment to something, if it’s a product or a service. That’s the moment in which to which friction might put you off. Yeah, we’re fickle things human beings. And sometimes we just get a feel from our inner chimp says, No, don’t do it now. And that’s what puts you off. So in that moment of enjoying that moment you want to buy you want to make it as smooth as possible for someone to agree the order and by I’m not saying you wouldn’t get if you get buyer’s remorse and you knew if you’ve been tricked into buying something, then you’re just going to go back and say, what’s going on Mark? I don’t want this I saw happened to you some NLP on me or something like that I don’t want. But ultimately, if you know, you’re not tricking somebody, it’s just about getting them in that moment. When you’ve worked through them. You’ve gone through the sale, you’ve overcome the objections. There’s no reason for them to say no. And then you stick something awkward in their way. They’ll probably I tell the kids are crying I’m going on. Yeah. And the next day they go well, ever think about it. Now, Mark? Honestly, probably. I’ll ever think about it now. And that’s it sounds cool.
Mark Smith
Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. this day and age. We’ve got everything at our fingertips. And yeah, we just we want it. We’re lazy. Now. We’ve got we’ve created this. We’re not lazy. We’re more efficient. We want. We enjoy our time. We don’t get much of it. And we want to use as little of it as possible on things like admin. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So talks about So Google drawings, that slide for process flows, that sort of thing. Is that what it is? Yes, it is. Yeah. Okay, awesome. And then Google Forms, okay. And then the two and then keep you obviously spoke to me about and that’s just really a checklist. To do this type thing is it,
Kyle Heath
what keeps not actually to do the to do list all you can use to be a to do list all it’s a note taking up a bunch of keepers to do note taking. So you For example, if you take, if you open a note on key, you can take photographs from your phone straight into it, or you can add photos you’ve already taken into it, you can create little checklists for things that you want to do. You can use labels to bundle them together for different projects or clients, things like that. If I bring mine up at the moment, I’ve got a few video lists in front of me, I’ve got a few podcast lists, I’ve got some hashtags that I copy and paste into Instagram from there every time so so I have to type those in. Again, I’ve got some pictures of business cards. Because if you take a photo of a business card, there’s an option in Google keyword or pull the text out the business card and put it into the into it for you. So it will use like an image recognition to pull the pull that content out. So now I don’t take a business card from anybody. I give him back. Oh, nice. And I kind of like why sometimes people like, Oh, I don’t mean to be rude, I’m going to give you this card back, right? Because it don’t need it. Let’s not waste it, you’ve printed it, give it to somebody else. At the end of the day, every little bit, every little bit of something counts towards not printing stuff, not wasting stuff. And it’s all about that. And it’s a good example of showing people look, you don’t have to do it this way anymore. And you don’t need to buy some fancy to capture your business cards, either.
Mark Smith
Know, and you’re probably more likely to use that person’s contact details, because I’ve got a pile of business cards somewhere that I don’t even look at
Kyle Heath
my desk is a proper business card to find the other day time, you know, and good luck to all those people who gave me those because I probably never look for him. And that’s what happens to your business card. 99.9% of the time. Yeah. bother
Mark Smith
us. Yeah, that’s why I haven’t even had any printed.
Kyle Heath
There we go. We’ll keep it super cool. Gone. lyst, the checklist. So these are little to do list. And you can set a reminder, but make the reminder, a location. So you can make the reminder a location, that means when you get in proximity of that location on the phone, it will bring up on the phone to tell you this list is relevant here. So you do a shopping list when your supermarket or you go to a client and have a list of things you want to talk about. And I’ll link up on the screen when you get there. And it’ll bring up every time that you go there. So it can be quite a cool thing to do.
Mark Smith
That’s amazing. Yes, yes, good.
That’s really good. I didn’t know that. So you can just choose a location. Anytime you’re within a certain distance, it will just pop up just to
Kyle Heath
go and do it today. Do do a little list. And then go shopping market. And that’s right. And when you get there, the final pick up Google Keep note, you’re at Tesco Mark, and then you can get your shopping.
Mark Smith
I’m kind of use that now. Yeah, I’m fine. Okay. So tell us a bit about your company then. So Kimberly, it I think we discussed this briefly before, you obviously offer IT services. But there’s an element of G Suite support as well as it. So talk to me about that. g sweets, all we do now is it
Kyle Heath
Yeah, that’s what we do. If you can, we can be it, you’re going to go move to Google and you’re going to go on G sweet, we don’t do any of the anything else. And our primary focus is working with really five to 50 years of businesses that are mostly sort of digital marketing or creative type industries, because those people tend to be the ones that are most interested in technology, and how them advanced their businesses through technology. It doesn’t mean those businesses are full of people who know, technology back to front, absolutely not. I’ve got customers who will say I don’t know anything from anything, but I do know it’s important. And that we kind of look forward the people we work with, we set them up on Google, that’s pretty straightforward. Move all that data and the stuff that’s dead easy, to be honest, what the bit that matters in the future is the education. Because what it used to be in the past by computer, you put office on it, and you installed Sage or something. And that didn’t really change for three or four years ago and the computer you just had that version of software. So if you theoretically knew what you’re doing at the start, you’d be in the same position three years later. Yeah, well, the cloud is constantly updating, we know you know this, if you use Instagram or anything, they add new features you see all the time. So you see in social media, it’s the same in G sweet Google adds new features probably every six weeks. And how do you know that what those new features are, you’re not likely to follow Google’s blog and you’re not likely to keep up to date with you. So you won’t know. And it’s James a nice job to tell you what they are. So we send you an email that comes out to every customer, this is what this new feature comes out. And we visit our clients roughly once every month, just have a go around and have a chat with people and show them new stuff and say, Look, if you tried this is a really cool way of doing something. And people appreciate it. And that’s, that’s the format of what we do in it. So a little bit different to most of the IT support companies in the we’re not sat around waiting for problems to go wrong. So we can send you a ticket and fix it quickly. We’re in the game of having no problems happen. And in the business of educating you how to do stuff better. So you can go home and maybe spend some more time with your kids dog wherever you are doing.
Mark Smith
Amazing. They’re more like productivity company than you are an IT company that says a technical
Kyle Heath
way of putting it actually James education the other day and and the productivity company. Yeah. Yeah, because it supports this associated with when it goes wrong phones and will be the fastest to fix it. Or we’re constantly monitoring how much disc space is on your hard drive. You know, no one gives a shit how much disc space is on their job, they don’t care. They’re interested and wouldn’t need to be interested in the kept it in the cloud, though. Those days have long since gone. But you know, you start me on the path of where where there’s so much problems in the industry that I’ve worked in. It’s you know, it looked after itself sometimes rather than looked after its customers.
Mark Smith
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, cool. Appreciate that. I’m
Kyle Heath
gone. What do you get out of it? That’d be interesting to see, what’s what’s your favourite? You’re a you’re a cloud, you’re a cloud using man. So why? Why do you do it?
Mark Smith
So I use it because I found I was looking for a solution where I could manage multiple accounts under one umbrella nice and easy. And I found a piece of software called shift. Or if you’ve heard of it, the I think their websites like tradeshift.com or something. And basically it is it’s like a desktop desktop based browser. And it allows you to be logged into multiple Google accounts all at once. So I’ve got a couple of different business accounts, I’ve got several different client accounts. And they’re all just sitting there. And I just click the little tabs on on the left hand side. And I could jump between all of their Google drives their calendars, there are you know everything basically that each of those accounts offer it in a single click. And then on top of that they offer pretty much any app that you use, or you can think of there’s a an app built into this particular browser. So I can do absolutely everything from this single app. So I use a tool called wave apps to do my accounting. I use Canvas to create my images of that stuff. And actually even bus route where I host my podcast is or there’s an app for every single one of those things. Yeah. And it’s all just in a single open item in my, you know, on my desktop, which is amazing. So what else have I got? I’ve got Hootsuite toggle, the time management tool is what’s up Trello pretty much everything you can think of, and it’s all in one piece, one single piece of software. And so I just yeah, I wanted a solution to manage multiple accounts. And that seemed like the best way to do it. And then yeah, Google. I’ve been a longtime Android user, until last year, and then Google. Yeah, so I use Google a lot. And it’s just it’s just like a Microsoft Office wasn’t for me. And when I left the office environment, I was very keen not to continue to use the same things I’ve only ever used. Did you move away from Android? Then? I tears? Yeah. So the same time I went all in I do for the business. I bought an iPhone. In hindsight, to be fair, I’d had the Samsung Galaxy, I think, and but I stopped at the six or seven, and I just didn’t really get on with it. But I think they’ve come a long way now. And there’s so many other players in the market. It’s not really about Samsung as much anymore. And you’ve got the one plus i think you were telling me about. It’s a good thing. Even the Google Pixel looks amazing. Yeah. There’s there’s so many options now. That Yeah, I just get very embedded into an ecosystem, I suppose. As I did nothing but Samsung for years. Yeah. And then so I always felt like it was Samsung vs. Apple. And I just thought I’d go towards Apple, because I did think I was going to go down the Mac route and everything, but actually probably going to just end up all in on Google and get an Android.
Kyle Heath
You were what would you run Windows or Mac on that?
Mark Smith
Yeah, desktop. So but I was going to go to Mac that was archived? So yeah, the iPhone was kind of stage one. But then actually, I just don’t need it. I don’t think if I’m really honest, I’ve got a decent desktop that I’ve built. And I can do what I need to do. So spending two grand on a MacBook Pro is probably not the best use of company money.
Kyle Heath
No, I reckon you’re absolutely right. This is a Windows computer I’m on now I’ve got a little HP to the left of me. And it’s a refurbished computer. And I think I picked it up for 200 quid. So it’s the ones that somebody bought, they come out the box, and then I go back in the box. So they’re not the second hand, but little bit like a nearly new car. It’s pretty good. And it’s great. So all of these guys, Windows 10 on it, put a nice monitor in front of it. And that’s it don’t I’ve got an old MacBook Pro my bag by older means, like a 2013 model when they were pretty robust. Yeah, I’ve got a Chromebook as well. And I’ve got my one plus phone and people say well, which What kind of man? Are you like what you use? I guess all of them. It just depends on what not to. But yeah, certainly there. Yeah, the days of saying, Oh, I have to have a Mac, if I’m creative, kind of kind of really gone. To be honest. You can do all on Windows, if you want to do it. So Adobe cloud and stuff where it all works.
Mark Smith
Exactly. And that’s what I’ve got. I’ve got the Photoshop, do some photos and stuff. So I’ve got like room and the cloud and stuff. So I get everything I need to. And there’s so many online a big about finding online tools that I could I want to fully convert to a Chromebook. But mine is accessing the multiple accounts. Yeah. That seems to be the one issue, you won’t be able to do that. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking about that. Because the whole login for the whole system is your Google account.
Kyle Heath
Yeah, yeah, you won’t be able to do that. Now you’re still we’re still not in the world yet? Well, you’ll be able to take one device, where I reckon that happen, it started to happen now is you know, with a Samsung, you can buy a Samsung phone that you can dock, and the dock connects to a keyboard and mouse and a screen. And then it shows your phone up on the on the screen for you. And you run all your Android apps in a full screen. Okay. And that’ll be the future in five plus years time. That’s what everyone will do. They won’t have desktops and laptops, you’ll just have a phone that that connects to a shelf or a laptop. So you’ve got a screen, and at home, you’ll just plug your phone in. And that’s it. Everyone’s phones and there won’t be any desktop computers. But that’s still be five to 10 years away. Because of all the people that won’t change quickly.
Mark Smith
Yeah, well, I’ve started to introduce similar docs, haven’t they for laptops, where it’s just a single K, but out of these docs now into into everything?
Kyle Heath
Yeah, you’re straight to the laptop. That’s right, you just plug it in. So you basically you’ve got bigger keyboard and screen, which again, you know, if you want to do a bit of Excel or something, whatever you want to do, you know, bit sheets, then you want to be able to use something that’s a bit big, given the screen on the phone, I get that makes a lot of sense.
Mark Smith
Yeah, absolutely. So So yeah, I could get away of the Chromebook. I think if I can get around the multiple accounts, or just have one just for the main account and run it all off my phone, everything else. If I need emails on the calendar, I suppose that’s the solution. And Chromebooks are so slick. They’re often they open up and shut down within about two seconds that noticed.
Kyle Heath
Yeah, and the key with those is it is that, you know, you see all the stuff in the news about ransomware. And you see all these businesses that have been shut down big businesses that were taken out by ransomware. And you won’t get that with Google files become a files are immune to that kind of stuff. And a Chromebook is 100%, the operating system can’t be compromised by that kind of stuff. And I’m not saying that in the future, that that might not change. And James and I always tell people, you will get hacked, not if you get hacked, you will get hacked. And what you want to do is make sure when it happens, it’s got the least impact because you took the most protection. Yeah. But when you look at how much devastation having a letting somebody do something about dodgy on a Windows computer can be in a company, you start the start of May you open your eyes as to why cloud so important. And it’s not a gimmick, and it’s not Oh, I don’t like it so don’t own it and all that it’s more than that. It means you can stop your business getting wiped out by these ransom. Where’s that encrypts everything and then hold you hostage?
Mark Smith
Yeah. And it happens more and more these days, isn’t it? I think there was one just last week I heard about, I think probably in the States. And that cost the company over a million pounds I think and they paid it was worth the fact that it happened on the fact they actually paid the money. But it just goes to show how how serious of a threat is
Kyle Heath
yes, it bolts Baltimore was hit by a to set two cities in Florida were both wiped out by one, North SC which is an aluminium manufacturer was hit by and cost him 45 million pounds. It took out 22,000 people. And the type of malware that they had as well was one where white people so good, I think it was a mistake by the creator of the malware, they’ve done such a great job of disabling Mr. Actually, you couldn’t get into the machine to see the ransom note. Even if you paid them, and you’ve got the tool that encrypts it, you wouldn’t even get into the computers running cookie data, because they’ve done such a good job of closing the machine out. That just breaks all the machines. And that company would have had to go to backup, they would have had to have gone to backup, which is probably why it’s took them so long. Because I’ve been through disaster recovery on a much smaller scale. You know, I’ve done a disaster recovery back in the day on maybe 20 computers and five servers or something from a fire where they’re all destroyed. And it takes you several days takes you several days to get you know all the kit ordered and get that in unless you’ve got an agreement with someone over 24 hours. And then you’ve got to restore it all. And then you got test it and with the best will in the world and a great team of text working, you know, nearly 24 seven, it takes days and weeks to get that stuff straight. And that’s on a couple of hundred, let alone that amount.
Mark Smith
Yeah, and probably across various countries as well. I just dread to think the sheer scale of that.
40 million pounds or whatever it was
Kyle Heath
absolutely been a real nightmare. What’s this podcast? Gonna, I know this the first episode and you said you wanna go on a podcast? And I like talking? So I said, Yeah, I’m on a podcast. Yeah, about what’s gonna happen. where’s this
Mark Smith
going? Well, so this is actually Episode Four. But this is my so but this is my first with a guest was okay was what actually meant. So it’s kind of aimed at small business owners, but a lot of it is going to be aimed towards other VA, the VA market in the UK is massive. So actually,
Kyle Heath
it’s huge in Sydney or actually all over LinkedIn.
Mark Smith
Yeah. And so I’m actually whilst I’m trying to get my clients and they’re not the eyes, I also want to kind of run as another parallel audience really. And so have an audience where I’ve got VA that can learn from what I’m doing, learn from my mistakes, potentially, and just get a few kind of tips and stuff along the way. So the main audience for this podcast will really be other vas. But occasionally, like, this episode, in particular, will be useful for any business owner, really. But then there’ll be some very VA specific ones as well. So I’m just really document in my journey, all the steps I’m going through, and getting lots of tips from people like yourself, that, you know, can help out and offer guidance and hopefully support some other businesses by having them on as well. If if it does take off?
Kyle Heath
Well, I will ask you one question. If I can do Yeah, got loads of VA stuff going on. And obviously, you know, the phrase pa rings mine from the days of dealing with MD and stuff and CEOs. But what has to be a what what is this all about? What is the new and why would somebody hire?
Mark Smith
So yeah, so the reason I got into it was because everybody thinks a VA is essentially, you know, a PA, a virtual personal assistant. And that is kind of how the phrase was coined, but actually, it’s, it’s a lot more than that now. And I wanted to bring a bit more than that to the industry that not many people are doing. So it’s essentially free, not freelance support for your business. And a lot of the A is just offer your your standard pa services, which is kind of where it came from. So your diary management, inbox, all of that stuff. But then I wanted to take that a step further and actually focus on kind of digital. So social media management, WordPress web design, hosted so a bit probably a technical VA is probably the best use for me. But essentially, by all intents and purposes, I’m a freelance digital marketer, I suppose you would probably say, Yeah, but I think there’s such a I don’t the term VA is so big now. And more and more people are starting to understand it. I think there’s an opportunity to stand out in this market, which is why I’ve caught myself that rather than a freelance digital marketer
who everybody claims to be these days.
Kyle Heath
I agree with Yeah, I’d agree with you. To me, I’m a freelance digital marketer, I would probably just go Okay,
Mark Smith
exactly.
Kyle Heath
The same as somebody says to you when you do call and I go, I’m working IT services.
Great. One of you la vi stands out and then got a mail VA, which is obviously your tagline. And, and yeah, that definitely does fine. It does stand out. It does. Because most of the PPC or women it’s female based industry marriage crossed over from people who have been administrators into their own business. And it’s interesting the angle you’re taking so now that I know of your podcast and you’ve graciously let me come on it as well. I’ll be following what you’re up to and seeing how this journey goes. Thanks very much appreciate it appreciate any support and so if anybody wants to find out more about you where can they find you? Well, if they’re that modern they inclined loose Oh yeah. Kyle Ethan to LinkedIn The great thing about being called Kyle is that there’s not many others holiday this year was in New Yorker with the girls in the pool and there’s little out there called call and and i’m keep saying Carla keep turning around and I know you’re just like what my marks more common name but honestly when you’ve got a name that’s not that common and for someone shouting turnaround is not expected to hear it unless it’s you. So it’s weird. So stick car Heath in there. You also find that kimberly.com and I’m on Instagram is at that technology guy that’ll do? Don’t you want to find me on Twitter you can make your own efforts because on Twitter I would say rubbish. Where I tweet about well James will say love islands but don’t actually watch live Island. But thanks thanks I don’t really watch low arlan because I watch first dates and he says that I watch rubbish TV
celebrity day and I did watch that for a bit as well as
Mark Smith
I love love Island you must also
Kyle Heath
wondered that myself Mark whether I should have watched love island to be honest.
Mark Smith
I feel like you missed out catch up on the ITV hub
Kyle Heath
maybe maybe I’m might take you up on that. I think things are fun those programmes I think all they are is harmless fun when the girls are going to better got one hour. And I do business. You know you think about business all the time. Let’s switch off and do something silly. That’s why I like those kind of shows. Just easy to just do nothing to need that data.
Mark Smith
Exactly. There’s nothing young got to keep up with a plot line or anything like that.
Kyle Heath
You’ll be watching some movies, foreign film or something.
Mark Smith
It’s just mindless, isn’t it? So yeah, films, but
Kyle Heath
yeah.
What’s wrong with that?
Mark Smith
Exactly.
Kyle Heath
I’ve enjoyed this very much short and sweet podcast. I like it’s good.
Mark Smith
Awesome. Thank you very much, Kyle. you soon. Thanks, everybody.
Okay, I hope you really enjoyed that episode. It was really fun to record. Great to chat to Kyle. If you also head over to my website, themaleva.co.uk/4 you’ll be able to find links to their website and for his social media there. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.
