Mindful Marketing Shortcuts to Increase Your Productivity with Lucy Reyes

Andréa Jones (00:00):
If you're feeling like a marketing hot mess, today we're talking about streamlining your marketing processes with the amazing Lucy Reyes of Cheers to Productivity. Let's get into it. You are listening to the Mindful Marketing Podcast. I'm Andréa Jones.

(00:24):
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(01:15):
So if you want to try this out for yourself, click the link that goes with this video. Or if you're listening to the audio on the podcast, it's in the show notes. Okay, click that link. Use the 15% off coupon code. It's Drea, DREA and try Riverside for yourself. Thank you, Riverside. Lucy, welcome to the show.

Lucy Reyes (01:38):
Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.

Andréa Jones (01:42):
I'm excited that you're here. We were talking before the show. I feel like I know you because you've been in my community. We're in other communities together and I just love your mission and your business all about productivity. How did that start though? Let's go back. Rewind, origin story. How did you get into talking about productivity?

Lucy Reyes (02:04):
Yeah, so it's actually a funny story because that's not how I first came into the online space. I remember back when I was still my corporate job and my husband was still my boyfriend, and we were driving from back into town, from going out of town, and I remember searching up like, oh, we should start a side hustle. Let's make some extra money on the side. And so I went to Pinterest and I found all the pins that were saying, this is how you start a blog and this is how you make money online. And so I dived into that and I started a mom blog, which I still have to this day. It's not my focus, but over time I learned how to build that up. I have that up and running, and then I transitioned into becoming a blog coach. I was still working my corporate job.

(02:49):
I got completely burnt out with all the demands of my corporate job. It was a very demanding industry, and eventually I just had to quit. And that period, looking back, I'm like, wow, I was so burnt out. I had to take a break from my entire business. I just completely shut down. I got pregnant and I couldn't function anymore. I was in bed throughout my entire pregnancy with my daughter. And coming back was kind of like this aha moment of realizing like, wait, I don't even like what I'm teaching right now. What is it that I want to do? And it wasn't until I had a conversation with a person with one of my friends that she pointed out that just because you're good at something doesn't mean that someone else is good at something. And that was kind of the aha moment for me of like, oh, looking back on my mom blog, most of the posts ended up becoming time management for working moms, and I just didn't realize that was my thing. And that's when I went all in. I had all this content. I used to be cheers to blogging, so I completely changed my business. I rebranded, I hosted a summit so that way I could get that owe to me into the past. She's gone. This is what I do now, and now it's just been productivity, organization systems, Trello ever since

Andréa Jones (04:08):
I hear you on the mom life, it is something else. It's a whole new level of, I wouldn't say balancing because it's never quite balanced. Maybe balancing is the right word then like okay, sometimes it's more over here, more over there, but it is a whole new level of productivity that's needed when you have these littles that you're chasing after, which I love that this is birthed from necessity, all of the things you're talking about here. So for those people who are listening, can you define what productivity means to you?

Lucy Reyes (04:40):
Yeah, so productivity has some negative connotations of you have to do more. You have to hustle, you have to do this. And just like we have a mindful marketing podcast, it is the mindful productivity. You don't have to do more. I actually am a huge advocate for resting, taking time off or taking breaks or enjoying the things that you want to do. And it is about kind of like you said, it's not about having a balance, but it's figuring out what a balance on a certain time of day looks like for you at a certain period of time. Sometimes that means you're sitting at home and watching Netflix all day while your task list keeps growing, and that's fine. Sometimes that's what you need to actually overcome that creativity slump that you might be experiencing. I know sometimes my husband would be like, oh, that was such an unproductive day because we just sat at home and did nothing. And I'm like, Nope, that was completely productive for me. That is exactly what I needed today. Because now when you get back to work on a Monday or whatever the time is, then you're feeling more refreshed. You're open to new ideas. So I really guess that's a really long-winded answer for productivity, but it's really just about helping you get more of the right things done without having to do more.

Andréa Jones (05:55):
Yeah, we're a team not doing more over here. I love that, and I love that you also mentioned that rest can be productive as well. Basically we do need to recharge and we do need to make sure that we to be productive. Having that rest is so, so important. And I love that you mentioned that too, because part of that balancing act. Okay, so let's dive into marketing automations. I love this conversation because there are so many things, tools and things that can help us automate so that we can be more productive. But how do we know which marketing tasks to automate first? How do we know where to start?

Lucy Reyes (06:35):
So the ones that I recommend that you start with are the ones that you find yourself repeating yourself, doing often. So even if it's a tiny, tiny task that you're just like, I'm clicking this button or moving this card over here, or I'm just repeating this specific task over and over again, it's something that can more than likely be automated, and it's such an easy way to just get it off your plate and not have it feeling like is this huge big thing that you have to set up on Zapier or something? You're like, oh, it feels overwhelming. So I actually recommend that you start with the smallest, smallest task that you're just like, it just takes a one to two seconds to do. And it's like, well, those one to two seconds add up. And the more automations you create, then you're adding minutes and then the more minutes you're saving hours. So I really recommend that you focus on what are those tiny, tiny tasks that you're repeating that would only save you maybe a few seconds and set up an automation for that. And you'll see just how much of a relief, even just those few seconds saved, how much is going to help you.

Andréa Jones (07:37):
Yeah. Can you give us an example of what one of those tiny tasks could be? Give me, paint the picture for me.

Lucy Reyes (07:44):
Okay, so my Trello, girl, we've chatted before. So one of my most, I was actually, I just received a message from one of my members today about her Trello automations that she was setting up, and there's an automation where you can, I use Instagram. Let's use Instagram. We all love Instagram. So on your Instagram content planner, if you have different lists for reels, Instagram stories post, you can have, whenever a card is added for a specific type of content that you're going to create, it automatically adds your task list for you. So that way you don't have to manually type them out yourself, it can automatically add a label for you. So it's automatically labeling this card is a reel, or this card is going to be an Instagram post, and you don't have to drag it over, add the label, and then get started. It's all done automatically for you.

Andréa Jones (08:40):
Oh, wow. I didn't know Trello had all of those automations, and I know you love Trello, so we're going to dive into all of that as well. But I love how simple it could be as like, okay, if we're typing the same things over and over again, let's just have it set up for us. Now my brains are my brain's thinking about how to do this in Google Docs. I'm sure there's a way, because there's a bunch of docs where we duplicate them all the time. Anyways, I think this is fascinating because the brain relief of not having to do that and not having to decide, it's like I physically feel lighter already as we're talking about it. I love it. So you mentioned Trello. What are some of the other tools that we can use to streamline our marketing?

Lucy Reyes (09:23):
So Zapier is another one that you can use or social media scheduling tools. I use, I don't know how to say it. I feel like I always say it wrong, but publisher, I think it's how you say it, pub. And there's a ManyChat, which is the one where you comment in the reels and the automatically triggers. Those are probably my top three that I like to use to automate other things in marketing.

Andréa Jones (09:46):
Yes, I'm a Zapier girl. I try to cancel my subscription last year and moved to something else, and I was just like, I cannot actually, I have too much. It would take so much time to move over to something else at this point, and it really does button everything up so that all my tools talk to each other. So I love that too. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to talk more about Trello. I'm so curious about these automations. So when we get back, we'll dive into that.

(10:16):
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(12:27):
We're back. So I want to dive into Trello in a moment, but one of my questions before we get into Trello specifically is mistakes. So I know that as a business owner, it could be really exciting once we dive into the world of automations, but what are the warnings we should look out for as we're starting to automate all of the things?

Lucy Reyes (12:48):
Yeah, I think that if you are one who gets excited about creating automations, I think once you start creating them and you start seeing the power of them, then you could get excited. And then there's ones that shy away, but I would say don't go all in too fast because automations are the things that you do have to give it some time to see if it's working and if it's doing what it was supposed to do. I've definitely set up automations where I created a whole bunch and then I realized I made a mistake in them, and now they're triggering the wrong email or they're triggering the wrong thing, and now I have to go back and fix all of the ones I did. I just went all in. So I would say create one, make sure it works the way that you want it to before you duplicate it for another similar task that is for automation, specifically for project management, like your systems. And definitely don't cram everything into one system because it can get super overwhelming. That is probably the biggest system mistake that I see is people come to me and they come with one big, huge Trello board, and it has everything in their business, and so they can't break it down fully and get detailed with the different tasks. So for automations and systems, I would say those are the two biggest mistakes. I see.

Andréa Jones (14:05):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it is human nature to get excited about it, but it's kind of building something for the first time. I'm going to use an IKEA reference. You got to check every step along the way before you sit down in the chair to see if it's fully put together. And so I feel like that's how it is. The automation, sometimes you got to check each step along the way and make sure we're not relying on it too, too much. Because as much as I love the robot, sometimes there are just some things that are better off left to a human. I'll give an example as well too. We tried to automate some welcome emails in our business specifically for our mentorship program. And I found that sending the personal email, we still a template for it, but sending the personal email just got a better response than the automation did. So we automate everything else. And then this one thing, we're just going to take a moment and send the personal email, but we do have an automation that's like a reminder. So when someone joins the program, Zapier, we'll create Asana task and then it's like, oh, send this person this email. And so we do have automations to help us with that, but still the personal email, the personal touch sometimes can't be skipped over.

Lucy Reyes (15:16):
Yes, I love those. I actually want to piggyback on those too. You said some great things there. So my shelf, you can't see it right now unless I tore my camera, but my shelving here, I made that mistake. I went all in, putting all the pieces together. I don't need instructions. I know how to do this. I'm that type of person. And then we get into it and we're like, oh, we put 'em in the wrong way. And it was so hard to get them back out. My friend had came over to help me and we had to wait for my husband to get home to actually pull them apart for us because we hadn't waited. So I can definitely relate to that IKEA example. And then with the automation, I definitely hear a lot of the impersonal. Same thing with ai, is it impersonal to automate?

(15:59):
And there are certain things that should be left, not automated or partially automated. So another example I can give that actually has been working super well, it's a new automation that I've been testing is in my own community, there is a way for me to automate a bulk message to people inside a specific segment. So it's personalized or it feels personalized to them. It's in the moment from me, but I'm not having to copy and paste the same message to every single person. And I think actually you've done it. I think it comes from whenever. So it's the same thing where it's a bulk dm and that's a form of automation as well, where it's still in the middle of not fully automated, but still somewhat, because it saves you time.

Andréa Jones (16:46):
Yeah, exactly. Saves you time and is partially automated, but has the human touch. We love it. We love it. So let's dive into all things Trello. For those who don't know Trello, tell us what is it?

Lucy Reyes (16:58):
Yeah, Trello is a project management tool that is great for task marketing or task workflows for marketing planning boards. Those are the really main things that I use it for is task and workflows and planning.

Andréa Jones (17:14):
And it almost looks like sticky notes. Each of the boards, it kind of looks like you have a wall of sticky notes that you can kind of organize. So if your brain really likes to look at that, is that called a Kanban? What am I talking

Lucy Reyes (17:25):
About? Yeah, so it's called a Kanban style board, and it does reflect sticky notes, and you can drag and drop. It is super visual, which is what I like about it. You can make it super pretty. There's, you can change the backgrounds, you can add stickers and gifs and all of these extra things to your board to make them fun and bright and colorful. But it is a born style, which if you're listening to this on the podcast, and the visual would be a list of checklist. So if you're a checklist person, that's also very helpful for them.

Andréa Jones (17:56):
Yes, yes. I love it. I love the Kanban style as well. I always describe Airtable as a spreadsheet, meets a Trello board. It is very similar in that way. So when we think about Trello and marketing, how can Trello help us achieve our marketing goals?

Lucy Reyes (18:14):
So like we were talking about with automations, it can help you set up certain automations to where it's integrating and talking to other tools. So many chat, you can set it up to where it talks to your ConvertKit, and then it goes from ConvertKit. You can have Zapier connected to your Trello board, for example. So there is a flow where you can really get in touch with the people who are actively signing up for things that you're doing. You can create different Trello boards for the different types of marketing tasks that you're doing. So actually really recommend that if you are a Trello user, that you are creating a separate board for every single part of the marketing, the different platforms. So one for LinkedIn, one for Instagram, one for Facebook, because all of the different platforms have different algorithms and they have different features that you can use. They have different customers on the platform, so it's not like a copy paste exactly across multiple platforms. It's not the same flow of tasks. So you really want to create several different boards for the different parts of the marketing business that you run and really get detailed with those.

Andréa Jones (19:22):
Yeah. So how do you use Trello personally in your business for your marketing? Do you have them by platform, or do you also have things like email newsletters in there and the summits that you plan and things like that? How are you using it?

Lucy Reyes (19:36):
So I have a board for everything. So I have an email newsletter planning board, and that board is strictly my email newsletters. I can look on calendar view, I can look to see when am I sending certain emails, what type of email is it? What is the topic of the email, where in the process is it? Am I drafting it, have I already scheduled it? Is it ready to go? So that's in a specific board. That way it doesn't get cluttered with everything else. So I have one for Instagram where Instagram, it's broken down by reels, Instagram stories, blog posts, or not blog posts by posts, like static feed posts. Each one has different steps. My Instagram stories is way smaller than creating a reel, which involves recording and editing and maybe scripting the B-roll, or not the bureau, but scripting the talking head tip. So there's different tasks there. And then that's on an Instagram board. I have one for LinkedIn, the same thing. So every single part has a different board because I can get super specific, super detailed with what I'm doing on that platform, what my goal is for that platform, I can just customize a board for that.

Andréa Jones (20:49):
And as far as automations go, I think you mentioned this earlier, but Trello is the content planning hub, and then you take that content and you post it either through publisher or natively on the platform, correct.

Lucy Reyes (21:01):
Yep. Yep. And I've actually been able to use it to where it's almost eliminated the need for some of the scheduling tools that I have. So I don't use Tailwind anymore. That's very recent, but I've been able to create the Pinterest board that I have in a way that it makes it really easy to just manually schedule my pins for it. Same thing with Instagram, since it's on my phone, Trello has an app that's really, really good. I can just get the notification that's like, oh, it's time to post, and then I post the reel and it's already ready to go. So definitely it helps save some money too if you want to get rid of some of those extra tools.

Andréa Jones (21:37):
So is the notification coming from Trello?

Lucy Reyes (21:41):
Yes.

Andréa Jones (21:42):
Oh, interesting. I didn't know it could do that. Very cool. So I use Airtable in a very similar way, but I don't have a notification for when it's time to post. I feel like I could probably add that in. So you've just inspired me with that. And I always say if you're listening to this and you're like, should I use Trello? Should I use Airtable? Just try and see what works for your brain. Airtable, my brain is like, oh, this is delicious. I can't get enough of it. But some people, they're like, Nope. Trello all the way, or They're no shit, or whatever the case may be. All of these are just tools. So you figure out which one works for you. Trello works for Lucy, Airtable works for Andrea. It's all good. It's all good.

Lucy Reyes (22:19):
Absolutely.

Andréa Jones (22:20):
So when we think about Trello, what are some of the mistakes that people make as they're starting to build out all of their boards and as they're starting to dive into some of the automations there?

Lucy Reyes (22:31):
Kind of what we had mentioned before about just creating one board for all of the things. So I see a social media board that's very common where you're trying to put everything social media into one specific board where it's like an Instagram list and then a Facebook list and a LinkedIn post list. So that way you can see it all in one view. I see that very often. But what happens is you're not able to get your full strategy for everything in there. Or if you do, it becomes this really, really big overwhelming board where you can no longer find things. You don't know where you put in that one post. You don't know how to access the link to your Canva pins that you saved in one of the cards and Trello. And so it's one of the biggest mistakes. And then the second one I would say is naming your boards.

(23:19):
You really want to get strategic with the names for your Trello board, so that way, exactly what is on that specific board. There's one that's very common that's just ideas, and it's like, well, what kind of ideas? And then you have so many ideas as an entrepreneur. So then it becomes this list of hundreds and hundreds of ideas that are now going to sit there because you don't have them categorized in a specific way. You can't find them, and now they're just kind of going to be in, it's like a little graveyard of great, amazing, awesome ideas.

Andréa Jones (23:50):
Yeah, it's like that junk drawer in the kitchen where you're like, we're just going to put random stuff here, and then it's never going to see the light of day again.

Lucy Reyes (23:59):
Yeah. Why do we all have that?

Andréa Jones (24:01):
I know it's a very universal experience, I think, but you're so right. That's what my Google keep looks like right now. It's just a bunch of random thoughts that I go through occasionally, and I'm like, oh yeah, this was a good thought. It just lives there. I should totally make a Trello board and organize it. But yeah, that's future Andrea. Wishful thinking.

Lucy Reyes (24:20):
I mean, you could do it in Airtable too. And like you said, all of this works on all of the platforms. It's just different terms or features for your specific platform, but you can do it. I like Airtable for certain things, so there's definitely a way that you can do that. I would actually, so let me throw in a tip here as if you do use Trello, you use Airtable or something else, if you have certain boards or certain places where you store things, just add something in there that says brain dump for that specific thing. So on my Instagram board, I have a card that says notes or brain dump. So if I have an idea specifically for Instagram, I add it to that Trello board.

Andréa Jones (24:58):
Oh, see, that's Sorry, thinking so then they can all stay in the same place. Okay, cool. I could definitely do that. I love it. Thank you, Lucy, for being on the show today. I know you have a quiz that will help us figure out what kind of planner we are. Tell us about the quiz.

Lucy Reyes (25:10):
Yeah, so it's a free quiz. You can find that cheers to productivity.com/quiz, and it's a super fun quiz. I get lots of feedback on how it's super relatable to how they are actually as a planner. So it'll help you. It'll send you a curated list of my own podcasts. I have my own podcast that's Cheerful Productive Chats, and it'll send you a curated list on how to help you plan the task in your business, depending on whether you are a little bit more structured, if you're a little bit more flexible, if you're kind of in the middle and it's just a really fun quiz.

Andréa Jones (25:42):
Yeah, check it out. I'll put the link to that in the show notes as well, onlinedrea.com/ 3 1 4, as well as all the links to connect with Lucy and her company, cheers for Productivity on social media. What's your favorite platform right now?

Lucy Reyes (25:56):
It's a toss up between Instagram and LinkedIn. I'm still kind of been going back and forth.

Andréa Jones (26:02):
Yeah, I love it. Okay, so I'll put links to all of that in the show notes as well. Make sure you connect with Lucy and everything she has. Lucy, thank you again for being on the show.

Lucy Reyes (26:10):
Thank you so much for having me.

Andréa Jones (26:12):
And thank you, dear listener for tuning into another episode of the Mindful Marketing Podcast. Make sure you connect with us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Leave a five star rating. Helps keep us in the top 100 marketing shows, which is all thanks to your listenership. Appreciate it. Next week we're doing a marketing automations round table, so stay tuned for that. I'll see you then. Bye for now.