Billie Grace  0:00  
Hi, everyone.

Zoë Glen  0:01  
Hello,

Billie Grace  0:02  
we are back.

Zoë Glen  0:03  
Welcome back to The not God pod. We are on episode four. 

Billie Grace  0:08  
Yes. 

Zoë Glen  0:08  
Which is exciting.

Billie Grace  0:11  
Yes. And I have feelings about it, which might make sense with with the theme of this episode, because it's one of those things that we sort of randomly had the idea for a while ago. And now here we are Episode Four.

Zoë Glen  0:31  
Just like that.

Billie Grace  0:34  
Today, we thought we will chat about kind of what we've learned in our first year on the business side. 

Zoë Glen  0:43  
Yeah, this is learnings and vague advice that you maybe should or should not take from us. Yeah. From our first year of doing things as a company. Yes.

Billie Grace  0:57  
It's been just over a year now isn't a year and two, three months maybe? Yeah,

Zoë Glen  1:03  
I think it's hard to pin down like an official start date. Yes. We were doing things and then there was a pandemic.

Billie Grace  1:14  
I think I think on my CV, I've got it written that it's like, as of March 2020, I think.

Zoë Glen  1:23  
Yeah. Lockdown happened and we were like, We might as well make a website and fill out some applications. While we're not doing anything. Yeah.

Billie Grace  1:34  
Pretty much. 

Zoë Glen  1:36  
And now we are here. Yes. 

Billie Grace  1:39  
And I mean, to be honest, thinking back to the first half a year, really, I think of trying to do this. I'm trying to figure out how its run. What we're doing as part of it. What we expect of maybe other members or not, has it's been a journey. I mean, if you think about the first few weeks, and I don't even know if we had a weekly meetings, then? or they were they kind of just like we were having chats, and then also chatting about NGC? Yeah,

Zoë Glen  2:12  
it would be like, let's do this this week. Why not? And I think it was like August, before we realised we had to give ourselves deadlines, or things would never get finished.

Billie Grace  2:23  
Yeah. I mean, Rites, In itself, the first project we've done, that was a big learning curve. on the business side, I think on actually like producing something.

Zoë Glen  2:39  
we were also like, trying to figure out, like, how we work as a company and how we divide responsibility, how we timescale stuff, all of that, while also trying to learn how to work. Virtually, yeah, and I think we tried every system until, like, every two weeks to be like, Okay, this doesn't work, things are getting forgotten here. Or like, this is causing, like, lack of clarity. new system! new system! And then I think, kind of maybe like, I don't know, October of last year, we pin something down that works for us. Yeah, now we are, I think very, very efficient.

Billie Grace  3:17  
Yeah, we are, um, my personality, my character, I guess, dictates that I still forget to do things often. However, I do end up doing them without too much damage...we have a system.. Yeah, but it was, I mean, actually like that. The process of figuring out what works for us, like, at the time was frustrating, I think it kept feeling like, you know,  because you don't know that you're gonna find something that works. I mean, logically, of course you are, but like in that space, and that time, you're like, Oh, God, like, okay, it's not working. You know, because you have to, you really have to, I guess, understand the person you're working with as well. And like, really understand what I guess like, what the non negotiables for each of you are, and then where to meet and how to.

Zoë Glen  4:19  
Yeah, and I think like how to best utilise the like personalities and skills within that , like, dynamic. Cuz I'm like, I am organised and I can organise very well and I can like, be like, okay, we need to be in this place in three months time. This is what we need to do. But I don't...then if you try and like deviate from the plan, I'm like, this makes no sense to me anymore...Like you have the flexibility which we like, often need because sometimes people are like 'you want to do this thing in like three weeks?' and we're like, yeah, we can..But I think if I was on my own, I'd be like, No, I have a plan.

Billie Grace  5:11  
Yeah, me because things do change us we need to be able to work within the plan. But having the plan that kind of means that you can do that as well. Because

Zoë Glen  5:23  
Yeah, because it's like, oh, we can see that. So therefore, we can like see them, which I'm sure we'll get more into later

Billie Grace  5:30  
yes, our mysterious system

Zoë Glen  5:35  
Yeah, you can just see like, Okay, this thing's come up which is an opportunity we want to take. So therefore, actually, this thing's not going to get done this week. Yeah. So we can move it to this to two weeks time, and that's fine

Billie Grace  5:47  
Yeah, having the system and having the, like, time scaling everything, I think, is super, super important. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, it's that thing. Everyone has always my whole life told me to do this. And I'm still not great at it. But it is that thing of like, if you work backwards from your goal, and timescale it and figure out every little step that needs to happen, it just doesn't seem that daunting anymore. And like, you end up just doing it.

Zoë Glen  6:18  
Yeah, I guess that brings us on to like, one of our big points for this, because I think we'll go like general learnings first, and then we'll talk a bit more about like logistical specifics. But like, things are not as difficult as they seem.

Billie Grace  6:35  
Yeah, they aren't. We keep coming up with ideas that seem totally unrealistic. yet so far. We have ended.... Yeah, we have done all of the things that we have thought were unrealistic, or are in the process of doing it. And it is literally just through trying to, you know, so let's take the podcast, I think for as an example, because that really was like it. on a whim. I was like, podcast sounds fun, why not?, how do we do that? And then Zoe, went and like figured out what, like how to what you need to host it, and what's the best options to like? Basically, host a podcast

Zoë Glen  7:27  
We recommend anchor, if you're wondering - anchor is your friend

Billie Grace  7:30  
Yeah. I don't know, to my mind things like getting your podcast, getting your whatever onto Spotify or Apple Music, Apple podcasts even it's, it just sounds hard. You know, it sounds hard. It sounds unattainable. But it's not. You literally just put it on anchor. And yeah, it just goes there. And it's like, yes.So simple. 

Zoë Glen  7:57  
Like, yeah, it just automatically appears on Spotify, you copy and paste a link onto Apple, and it's just there. Yeah. Like, but it's one of those things that I think yeah, I think we've learned to assume that everything is attainable. Yeah. And then look at how to do it. And it's usually not that hard. Rather than being like.. oh, that sounds difficult. Let's postpone it forever.

Billie Grace  8:25  
Yeah. Which is what I'm very good at doing. With everything currently, it's calling the doctor which I feel like lots of people relate to it seems too difficult to me right now. It's not I know, objectively, that it's not...anyway.

Zoë Glen  8:42  
What we're saying is that starting a podcast is easier than making a doctor's appointment. 

Billie Grace  8:46  
I mean, if you're me,

Zoë Glen  8:54  
I feel like it maybe just is to be honest.

Billie Grace  8:59  
Yeah. But it is like that. I think that's the biggest thing that we've learnt is, you really just need to decide what you want to do. It just like decide no matter how, like, if you don't know how you're gonna do it. I'm hearing myself giving the same advice that I've heard too many other people give. And like, I recognise that whenever I've heard other people say this, I've always been like, What are you talking about? But I think what I'm saying is like, decide what your what you want to do. And then literally write down the steps to get there. Or like yeah, I don't know. Timeline it.

Zoë Glen  9:39  
Yeah, yeah. Basically, like, Where do you want to be? Okay, so let's take podcasts for example. We're like, right, we want to release a podcast what's the things you have to do for a podcast? So we've got not we need to record it. Well, okay, so first we vaguely plan it very vaguely plan it. Yes. You've got to record it. And then you've got to edit it. And then we like transcribe it. And check that that's all accurate and stuff and do the like uploading of it. And then we post about it and it's out in the world. Yeah. So then it's like, okay, is this basic advice? I don't know. I'm gonna give it anyway.

Billie Grace  10:20  
I mean, yeah, I don't know, because this is what I'm thinking too. But then we had to learn?

Zoë Glen  10:28  
Yeah, I feel like we needed this a year ago. Yeah. 

Billie Grace  10:31  
Maybe someone else does too. 

Zoë Glen  10:34  
So that is just being like, Okay, how long do we think editing is going to take us? How long do we think the like uploading and stuff is going to take us? Whens a date we can record and figure out how long realistically you need for all of that. We, like, consciously overestimated the first time we did it. And now we're like, we know this can be live a day after uploading, it's fine. And then you just like, work. But like, figure out a date based on that. And then you do all those things. And then you have a podcast or you have whatever you wanted. Yeah.

and you're like Like, oh, that was fine!.

Billie Grace  11:13  
Yeah, it really is that and it's, I mean, yeah, the first time that we did our first podcast episode, I think we gave ourselves like, over a month to do it. Yeah.

Zoë Glen  11:27  
Now we're like, we're recording this, and it will be out in two weeks. Yeah. I think maybe three weeks. 

Billie Grace  11:34  
If it's out in three weeks? I'm not gonna start editing it till next week. Yeah. Yeah.

Zoë Glen  11:44  
But yeah, I think it's just like, considering that will make it seem so much easier, because it's just lots of small tasks, rather than like, Oh, we have to edit this in two days.

Billie Grace  11:55  
Yeah. And even though like, actually, we probably could, it was useful to give ourselves such a long time in the beginning, just to like, you know, make sure that we're not stressed. Make sure that theres time, make sure that if something messes up, we can do it. We did mess up, actually, I somehow managed to leave like, two minutes of silence in the beginning of the first episode. I don't know how that happened. Um, but you know, because we were because we gave ourselves such a ridiculous amount of time. It was fine. We fixed it. And it's all good. I mean, now, we're only on episode four. Like, that's not that long. You know, we it's not that far. But I think we're already very comfortable with it. Because we've just figured out every single step, and it's fine.

Zoë Glen  12:45  
Yeah, we'll be like, expert. podcasters in no time

Billie Grace  12:47  
Yeah, absolutely. 

Zoë Glen  12:51  
Our next thing is to, like, figure out what the timescale what the realistic time scaling is of getting other people on. That's our current learning curve

Billie Grace  12:59  
Yes. Yes, yes. That also were to maybe get some money to potentially Yeah, potentially to potentially pay guests. That's, that's a learning curve that I think we're still on. Yeah, we'll let you know. 

Zoë Glen  13:19  
The funding application learning curve 

Billie Grace  13:21  
funding applications. I mean, I don't think anyone likes them.

Zoë Glen  13:26  
No. And we definitely get like, faster at them. I'd like tighter with our answers. And our we've got enough like copy. Yeah. I mean, it's Yeah. Like, we know who we are and how to express that. Yeah. In the best words.

Billie Grace  13:44  
Until they ask you to do a video and then you end up being completely lost. Like I have been

Zoë Glen  13:52  
we're trying 

Billie Grace  13:53  
but it's fine. But this is I mean, yeah, I guess even in this this is just how we've like I feel like we've learned to trust that we'll get to somewhere. So even yes, even with like, me being super frustrated with this current application just because it i i guess i hate having to promote myself and like, try and sound like what someone else wants me to sound like like it just feels so weird. I know that I'll that we'll figure out that it will be done somehow. Eventually, yeah. And then after this, it will get easier and easier.

Zoë Glen  14:32  
Yeah. And it's also like, even from this like, this is the first time we've done an application that's asked us for a video. And it's like oh, we're learning that we need to script a video.

Billie Grace  14:42  
Yeah. Yeah, I tried to I did like a mock up video of a video that's meant to be two minutes. It was nine minutes of completely nonsensical, rambling

Zoë Glen  14:56  
Talking to me about me about your laundry by the end 

Billie Grace  15:00  
I'm always talking about laundry though that's never ending. Oh, yeah. 

Zoë Glen  15:07  
But in case you couldn't tell from this podcast, our conversation style is very meandering. Yeah. And so if we've got to do a two minute video, we're like, cool. We've learnt we need to write a script.

Billie Grace  15:20  
Yes. 

Zoë Glen  15:22  
But it's also about like giving, especially if you're working like we are with, like, our deadlines are self imposed, giving ourselves time that we can be like, Oh, interesting. We've learned this from this, like, Oh, cool. We've learned that we're gonna need to script a video or like, we've learned that, like, if we did the podcast, like, this theres this weird silence at the start that we need to take out. We've planned to have the time we can be like, Oh, cool. By the way, this is how we do this not like panicking, because we need to get it done.

Billie Grace  15:55  
Yeah. I mean, that. I think that's the thing of, it's that balance, again, between needing to be organised, but also flexible within that. I think that's like, honestly, I think, probably a big reason why we're where we are, is because that is literally what you and I are, is like, the ability to not get stressed, with things going wrong, because we have the organisation structure for that to not be stressful. Um, yeah, yeah, it's great. Because I'm very much the type of person who would do that. Who would like last minute, do something realise that I've messed something up stress about it, like scramble to get it, right? Things go up like, a little bit later than they should? Then I feel crappy about you know, but if, if we catch that just a little bit earlier, it's not that stressful.

Zoë Glen  17:00  
Yeah, well, this stuff like, okay, so there's a, like social media plan, which I guess is another thing that has been very effective for us and kind of came out of like that we started this during lockdown. So the kind of most evident point of focus was to build some sort of an online presence. And so we were like, cool. We have two posting days a week, and we plan what we're going to post on them. Yeah. And again, sometimes that shifts because sometimes, one of the collective have something cool happening that we want to post about. Or, like, we end up doing an event with someone that we want to post about, so it does shift, but it means that we know exactly what we're posting for the month? And usually, anything that requires any great deal of sorting..like making a graphic, or, like getting a video clip together or whatever is done in advance? Yeah,

Billie Grace  17:54  
yeah. I mean, having a social media plan is kind of life changing, to be honest. Like, I do it for my own personal account now as well. Because it just means that you can upkeep your presence, but don't have to, like on the day, think about what to say, you know, you're having a crappy day. You don't feel like posting something, or you don't have any inspiration from the like, in that moment. It's fine. Because you you did it already.

Zoë Glen  18:24  
Yeah. And like we like have a level of consistency. Because of that. Sometimes we forget, but we don't forget very often. Yeah. But occasionally we forget, but other than that, like I'd say like 90% of weeks, we post, like, twice.

Billie Grace  18:40  
That's it. It's more than that. So it's like 95%.. Yeah, I think we've only forgotten like, maybe three times.

Zoë Glen  18:48  
Yeah. And part of most of that was when we were like, together like move... because we were moving out. Yes. It would be like, ah, we just weren't like doing the thing of like, checking the digital thing to be like who's doing it?

Billie Grace  19:04  
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is another thing. Like if we, if we live in the same city again, I'd have to like work in person. I feel like we're gonna have to relearn how to do much. Yeah. Because Yeah, that was it. We were like, basically, it was during the summer after the pandemic, so I had been with my partner and then and you had been home and like, we basically weren't at the same house. And then we came together and we were like, Oh, great. We're gonna have two weeks of like, being in person. It's gonna be so much easier to get stuff done. While we're moving. I mean, this..we really should have known..

Zoë Glen  19:44  
yeah overestimated how many hours are in the day? Yeah. 

Billie Grace  19:51  
That was chaotic. Um, yeah. That that was when we forgot to do most of it. I see stuff because I guess because we were taken out of our system, but also like put into a stressful situation anyway.

Zoë Glen  20:06  
Yeah. But it's just a like a system has to be in constant adaptation.

Billie Grace  20:11  
Yes, it does. But the fact that it exists is vital. 

Zoë Glen  20:16  
Which brings us on to I guess, what is our system?

Billie Grace  20:20  
What is our system? Our system is basically just notion. 

Zoë Glen  20:25  
Yeah, we love notion. 

Billie Grace  20:26  
Yeah. notion if you want to sponsor us, we would be down for that..we can do like multiple podcasts on notion if you would like,

Zoë Glen  20:36  
yeah, we can provide a notion tour on social media, probably.

Billie Grace  20:42  
No. Okay. So notion is a organised like a virtual organisational space, right?

Is that what they call them? 

Zoë Glen  20:48  
Yeah, like a like virtual workspace situation,

Billie Grace  20:52  
the thing that like really made me love it initially, is the fact that it's aesthetically pleasant to look at. Yes. And then, then obviously, it's also very useful and has a lot of functions. I think what like, what, for me, it might sound stupid, but like, it really sets it apart for me from other virtual workspaces, is the fact that it's so sort of user friendly, and pretty to look at. And it's not like overwhelming because there's other there's so many other goodness...Why can I not speak? websites, virtual workspaces... That I can't use, I get so confused by it. Like, because it'll just be totally chaotic.

Zoë Glen  21:41  
It's also like, um, malleability of it is great. So like, what we were trying to do before was we had like, a shared Google Calendar, and it had like events and like social media plan in it. And then we were doing the like, what needs done each week on like, Trello, and then trying to like colour code as to who's responsibility was what, and then like, notes for like, projects, and stuff would just be in like, Google documents, and then videos would be in like the Google Drive. And it's so easy to lose stuff like that.

Billie Grace  22:13  
And I still, like if I look into our Google Drive, I still can't find anything to be honest. 

Zoë Glen  22:21  
Whereas this is like, we have a main page, it's got like, I think they're called like Kanban boards, like what Trello is like, but so with, like week commencing, whatever the date is, and what needs done that week, and then you can assign it to all the people like added to your board. So it's very clear, who needs to do what you can just drop down, select your name, be like, cool, these are my tasks for the week. And then it does a calendar for our social media plan that we can like upload files and do so we can be like, here's the post. Yeah, great. And then we have like a page for like, every project where like, bits of script are on there.. ideas, like sub pages with like, copy we've written for applications, we can keep like, yeah, yeah. Like there's like spreadsheets like invoices and like grants, people we pay people who've paid us like, all of that kind of stuff is all it's just all in one place.

Billie Grace  23:15  
Yeah. It's beautiful. You can add emojis to all of it. And it's a great

Zoë Glen  23:23  
The best thing. And you can also like, comment, and tag people is the thing as well. So if say you've like, written, something like you've written a caption for a social media post, and you want somebody's opinion but you don't want to like message them on Facebook... because it's not urgent. So you just are like, how does this sound you just tagged them you like Hi, this is my thoughts for caption, want to make any edits? And then they can edit it. 

Billie Grace  23:51  
so simple. It's fantastic. I've actually, I mean, I've also seen people, like fully write essays on Notion.

Zoë Glen  23:59  
Yeah, I have all my like, academic stuff and all my life stuff on my like, personal notion. But yeah, that would be our biggest recommendation for like, online workspace that works well for running a theatre company. Because also you can embed sound you can embed videos. It's very, like, friendly to embed media into which is good because sometimes you're like, yeah, here's a bit of script and here's a rehearsal video and like, here's a music track I want to use. And it just holds all that. Yeah, the only thing is, it seems like and this is like a life hack notion life hack. It seems like you need the professional business workspace one. To have multiple people on a notion board. You do not you just make a personal one and add people as guests send them an email invite and you could add more people that way without having to pay also you get fancy notion free with an academic email address, but yes notion tour coming soon.

Billie Grace  24:59  
So that's like, that is our system, or rather that well, we call it our system, but it's actually not like give ourselves a bit more credit. It's our platform for our system Yeah. Like we, you know, on it, as we said, we organise weekly tasks and we organise our posts and any projects that we're doing and any applications that we're writing. Yeah, I guess maybe we can talk about what some of the things are that we have that we find to be very important in, in running a thing? Yeah the first would be probably be the weekly meetings.

Zoë Glen  25:41  
Yeah, I was gonna say, like, weekly meetings, and what do we do in them? Yeah, so yeah, we generally meet once a week. And sometimes that will be like entirely and like, admin, meetings situation, sometimes it'll be like, so for example, we'll record this today. And then once we're done recording will, like, be like, cool. Are we all set on everything for this week? So it varies. But yeah, they're like, one, like, consistent thing is we're like, right, what are the tasks for this week? And who is doing what?

Billie Grace  26:12  
Yeah, and that is the thing of, I guess what I was saying is like, sometimes it won't be very much. And it will be very clear. And it will, you know, we'll just be posting and then maybe replying to like two emails, you know, and so we don't need a full meeting for that. Now that can be that can easily be done, over chat. But that's also something that I think, took us a little while to be comfortable with as well. Because at the start, when we started this, I really think that we were adamant to meet every single week, even if we don't really have much to chat about. We just made sure we actually spoke to each other, and  like checked in.

Zoë Glen  26:56  
Yeah, well, I think now we're like, there's an established enough, there's an established enough system that, like, even the time to meet is hard to find, or there's not like enough to make it worth finding time to meet. We know that it's clear enough. What needs done that we can trust that. Yeah. And that we are like, I think we've kind of like naturally developed a clear enough idea of the sorts of things we post and like, what a Not-God Complex social media post looks like or like how we email like, where are we on the like, super informal to Super formal? Yeah. You know?

Billie Grace  27:35  
Yeah because at the start, we were like drafting emails together as well. 

Zoë Glen  27:39  
And now I'm like, Yes. Sounds good.

Billie Grace  27:45  
Yeah, I mean, I think we also actually a big thing, I think that we learned is that we don't have to be super formal. Yeah, and it doesn't like that doesn't sit well with us, I think being super formal. Yeah. And like, it's fine. We still managed to do things. Like even last podcast, we could, you know, we could have scripted this podcast 

Zoë Glen  28:10  
That would be weird

Billie Grace  28:11  
It would be weird. Yeah. But we could have made it really formal. But it would also just be weird. And probably we'd stop doing it because it wouldn't be as fun. It's much more fun just chatting about a thing.

Zoë Glen  28:23  
Yeah, for sure. The other thing is that we have like a one of our meetings each month is like we plan our social media for the next month. And that's actually really kind of useful in that we'd like find stuff to do.

Billie Grace  28:39  
It's Yeah, because we're like, Okay, what on earth are we gonna post if we're not doing anything? I guess we need to do something.

Zoë Glen  28:47  
And then that happens. And sometimes the things that like, feel like the biggest like reach, are like the things that get, like are the most engaged with for the best received or like,

Billie Grace  29:01  
yeah, I...it was already probably a year ago now. But we did. Like, introducing everyone in our company. And their pets. Yeah. And that was people love that. I guess. I mean, I guess people love pets. Same.

Zoë Glen  29:22  
Like, we have this kind of like rule of we post twice a week. And some sometimes we're like, we have too much stuff. What goes where, but sometimes it like really challenges us to, like think so. Yeah, it's useful. And yeah, basically, we like plan that. And then that obviously corresponds with like if we've got events happening or projects happening, because we're posting about it. And then so we do that and then right after doing that, we do like the what needs to happen each week for the next like four or five weeks. And then it's kind of like, easy from there.

Billie Grace  29:59  
Yeah. I was just gonna say I also kind of helps keep us accountable. I think if we decide we're going to post about something, it means that we're like, going to tell people that we have done a thing or we are doing a thing. And so, in that, in doing that, it's like, well, we have to do the thing or have done the thing by then. So that's, um, that's what we know. So far. I think

Zoë Glen  30:27  
Yeah. Notion tour coming soon? 

Billie Grace  30:31  
Yes. No, honestly notion is fantastic. 

Zoë Glen  30:36  
You don't get to be in a zoom meeting with me without me screen sharing my notion for you.

Billie Grace  30:41  
Yeah. Unless, unless we're on the same notion, like we are currently. I don't know about your screen. But I'm going to assume that it's similar to mine in which it's a split screen. And you have zoom one side notion of the other?

Zoë Glen  30:53  
Yeah the podcast notes!

Billie Grace  31:00  
Cool. 

Zoë Glen  31:00  
Yes. We'd love to hear your organisational strategies. Yes. Because I think Yeah, finding things that let you contain all the creative information in an organisational way can be a challenge. So we'd love to hear any of your solutions! We hope you enjoyed Episode Four of The Not-God Pod. Leave us a rating and review. If you're on Apple podcast.

Billie Grace  31:26  
Please give us a five star Why not? 

Zoë Glen  31:29  
Yes. Find us on social media. We are at The not-god complex on Instagram and Facebook and at not-god complex on Twitter. You can also email us if you want. We are The notgod complex@outlook.com if you want to come chat to us on the podcast definitely drop us a message or an email. We would love to have you. 

Billie Grace  31:57  
We plan these things not very thoroughly and quite last minute to be honest. So there's always time to come and give us an idea. Yeah, for what you would like. 

Zoë Glen  32:11  
You want to be in Episode Five? Hit us up.

Billie Grace  32:16  
Definitely have time. 

Zoë Glen  32:20  
Yeah, we hope you enjoyed, and we will speak to you soon. Yeah. Cool. Bye bye.

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