11 business ideas on skills, communication with teams, habits and processes.
Mike Lysko is the founder and CEO of Flock, an easy to use event management software for the events industry. Since launching in 2017, the app has had over 200,000 users and works in over 36 countries. Mike has worked with major brands like Oracle, Redbull and South African Tourism. A Civitas team member sat down with Mike to discuss how he started Flock, and the skills, process and habits that have helped him grow his business.
Summary of the best ideas from the discussion
- Look at the big picture and have a North Star focus in your business.
- Schedule a daily huddle with your team to keep everyone in the loop.
- Create an agenda for every meeting so it’s to the point.
- Time block your calendar and use your Sunday to plan for the week ahead.
On skills that developed the business
- Look at the bigger picture and have a North Star focus. It will help you scale and focus.
- Create a culture of open communication and transparency. Don’t hold on to information, share it with the team.
On team communication
- We have a daily huddle that helps us align in terms of what everyone is getting up to for the day. There's four things to cover in that fifteen-minute time slot, together. One being, how's everyone feeling. Two is a very high level - what did you get up to yesterday? Three is what is on the agenda for today. And four is, are you stuck, and do you need help?
- We have a Flock Friday. A team member will share what process or software they have picked up in the past week that can benefit the team. It's a collective peer-to-peer knowledge forum.
On processes, standard operating procedures and tools
- Train your team to help out in other areas not part of their initial KPI’s. For example, not having one person doing quotes. The whole team can help out if needed.
- We use Club House to manage our software side. It gives us a high-level overview of where we are in terms of sprints and if we need to report back to stakeholders. It's a great tool to use. It beds down right into the piece of code that someone's working on. It really limits unnecessary time-wasting.
- We use Trello to manage our projects. Everyone has an idea of where a project is at, and that helps the team a lot.
- Pipedrive is our sales CRM, and that really has helped in terms of the team being able to update quotes.
- Don’t have unnecessary meetings, and always go into a meeting with an agenda. Try to schedule it at 20, 30-minute slots to keep things to the point.
On habits
- Try not to check emails all the time. It can distract you.
- Blocking off time in your calendar for tasks and meetings. I use Sunday evening to plan ahead for the week.
