The Growth Letter by Tim Cakir - Issue #4

March 25, 2020

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Hi guys,

As we are all getting used to remote work since we are obliged to adapt and continue to work one way or another, let’s try to make this the best setup possible. If you know me, you know that I am crazy about tools!

This edition we will be looking at articles on remote working, how do companies adapt to remote work and what tools some companies use. The tools section will be the main highlight this week as I will be including the tools that I use to make my remote work life easier and some other tools that I recommend you to check according your needs.

Again, I will put my calendly link for your convenience where you can book a 30mins meeting with me asking me about tools and I will try to help you as much as I can.

If you enjoy this edition, please do share it with friends and they can all subscribe to receive a personalised welcome video from me and then they can be on the list to receive the newsletter.

Hope you will enjoy this edition!

Stay safe!

Tim C

Highlight = Tools

I’ve been using loom close to two years now and it is super powerful for many reasons. Instead of trying to explain something on an email record a quick loom, looking to give feedback on some work, record a loom, trying to explain a process, record a loom, trying to show some work, record a loom. It is that simple really. Instead of writing docs and email for feedback, just adopt a new way to do things and record a loom, your team will be impressed, your clients will be impressed and you will be impressed with yourself.

I used to believe in the free video conferencing tools like Google Hangout / Meet but since I bought a Zoom yearly account, I have 0 regrets and I usually change the meetings into a zoom meeting if anybody is using anything else but zoom. The breakout rooms has been super useful for my teaching.

If you and your company is not using Slack for communications than it means you should be with FB workplace hopefully. Slack has changed the way we communicate and it is almost saving lives. I think the FB workplace option is not my first choise but I can see some companies doing well with it. Slack, Slack, Slack!! Integrate some apps, create some workflows and make sure to have a clear channels guide.

Signing papers by hand? If yes, OMG that’s so old school. Get your team on Docusign and get things signed quickly, send proposals and contracts and get them signed without any wait. No more excuses!

This has saved my life! I got into Notion a month ago or so, and I couldn’t sleep the first few days as I wanted to customise my personal Notion to fit my needs which Evernote, Diary, Omnifocus and many other tools were combined to achieve this. Notion is an all in one workplace that has some incredible features like linked databases. I will let you explore this for yourself but trust me its mind blowing.

This has helped me automate some of my tasks and it is saving me a lot of time these days. There are so many ways that you can automate your tasks and integrate tools in a super efficient way. Check it out and I am sure you will find some little hacks that will save you time and energy.

I have been using Polymail for over 2 years now and I am super happy with it as I used Airmail before, tried Gmail many times but never enjoyed it. In polymail I have all my emails, email templates, sales sequences and many other cool features that makes this tool my preferred email tool.

Obviously I cant do much without my Discover weekly from Spotify. No need to explain why spotify but for me its mainly the discover weekly ;)

I bought this mic set for my iPhone 11 Pro Max to start recording my public speaking but obviously all my events got cancelled and now I use the mic for my video calls, I have connected to my laptop and have it on my desk, a lot of people has noticed the quality of my audio on the calls.

When you work from home and have a partner and/or kids, it can get loud so the Bose really isolates me from whats going on behind me and I can focus on the task at hand.

Good Reads

Some simple but great tips to make your setup efficient and remote friendly:

If you’re new to remote work, here’s how to set up your workspace and tech, be professional & find life balance while working from home.

Few examples on how SaaS companies are updating some of their plans and offerings:

If you’re a SaaS owner, founder, or marketer — by now you’ve probably already been talking about how (or if) you should respond to the current situation with COVID-19. By this point, there are an…

A great introduction resource for Remote Work:

Learn everything about remote work and managing distributed teams, from the what, why, and how to busting the common myths.

My personal favourite for Remote Work:

Successfully build and scale remote-first teams.

And here is Google’s new site on COVID-19:

Information and resources to help people stay safe, connected and informed.