WTF is this?
This handbook is the no-nonsense guide to crushing it as a hustler on the internet.
1. Show up on time!
If you’ve been invited to a meeting, and you accepted it – PLEASE SHOW UP ON TIME. NOT 2 mins after the meeting starts. There is absolutely no reason to be tardy. I’ll be straight – if you can’t come to a meeting on time, you should not be working here. It shows, amongst other things, a lack of respect for everyone else in the meeting. If you can’t respect your co-workers and customers – no matter how much of a genius you are – you are not welcome here at QuestionPro. No exceptions.
If you going to be late to a meeting – slack the organizer as soon as you know and let them know. For global meetings like Townhall etc – you don’t get to make this call. Include the reason why you can’t be on time for a meeting.
If the meeting is at 7 am PST – please make sure you show up by 6:58. That way – if you have “headphone” issues – you have 2 minutes to resolve them. If you can’t resolve headphone issues in 2 mins – then you need a new pair of headphones or a new brain!
2. Meeting Calling
If you call a meeting, please send a calendar invite. Make sure all participants are visible. Send a zoom link along with the invite. DO NOT SEND A MEETING INVITE WITHOUT A ZOOM LINK. It’s a waste of time. How are we supposed to meet?
If you are sending meeting invites for external meetings (with customers, partners etc) – please include the dial-in number for zoom. Not just the link. Most folks don’t have zoom installed on their phones. Moreover – if folks are calling from a conference room – they have no way of joining the meeting without a dial-in number. Think ahead.
Recurring meetings MUST have a “ScratchPad” in the Meeting Invite – this is a Rolling Google Doc that has all the meeting notes by date. Make sure the scratchpad is in the Meeting Invite – so we can get to it easily.
3. Meeting Time
Schedule emails with executives for 30 mins. Not 1 hour. No one has 1 hour for talking about shit. Discovery and initial called should be scheduled only for 30 mins. If it goes beyond – great. There is nothing like a 1 hour discovery call.
4. Action items and recap email
Make sure you send a detailed action items and recap email within 30 mins of the end of the call. This will force you to take notes and actually listen to the call. This goes for internal and external meetings!
Don’t wait for the CEO to send an action item/recap email. Why? Why can’t you take the initiative and raise your hand?
In the action items/recap email have a clear call to action. What are the next steps. Who owns them. And what’s the deadline. A random ass “thank you for your time” is a useless email. Three things
Action Items
1. What are the action items
2. Who owns what.
3. When?
his process creates forward momentum.
5. Backchannel – On slack.
That’s our tool for backchannel. Don’t again wait for the CEO to create the backchannel for you. Why?
6. If you accept a meeting – show up.
If you can’t – then give everyone advance notice that you can’t make it to the meeting – via email or slack. There is absolutely no reason to accept a meeting and “forget” about the meeting. It shows a total lack of basic coherence
7. Meeting Confirmation
Please send a confirmation email to the clients on the “Day of” the meeting – to confirm that we are still on for the day. Things happen and change. If you know in the morning that the client meeting will not happen – you can schedule other meetings.
8. Sloppy Readjusting Deadlines
Don’t wait 48 hours to tell someone internally – that it will take 7 more days to meet a deadline. The _minute_ you know that you will not be meeting a deadline, its YOUR responsibility to let everyone know that you will be missing a deadline.
9. Good Fucking Internet
YOU NEED TO BE IN A LOCATION WITH GOOD INTERNET. If you shitty internet – then you SHOULD NOT BE PRESENTING. Just let everyone know that in 2020 – you can’t find good internet connectivity and you are too lame to figure this out by yourself.
10. Mute.
Ride the mute button – if you are in a noisy place. This includes the Austin office. There are too many folks yelling and screaming in the background. Alternatively, go to a place which is quiet. It’s your responsibility to find a quiet place.
11. OOF
We are all professionals. If you are NOT going to respond or check email for more than 8 hours – PLEASE SET UP YOUR OOF! I can’t believe I have to say this – but this applies to everyone. Yes – by everyone I mean you. Developers, QA, Support – everyone. We are in a remote environment and if you can’t do simple things like this – you are wasting our time and your time here. I don’t want amateurs in this business. We are all professionals.
12. Google Docs
ALL DOCS should be on Google Docs – not in your personal hard drive. No exception. Your HDD is not backed up and any information will be wiped out. Again, If I catch folks sending me a Word document as an attachment – I’ll fucking loose it.
13 Regional Acronyms that don’t make any sense;
- PFA – WTF is PFA – Well – Only folks in India know what that is. Gringo’s have no idea what that means and they are usually scratching their heads. At least everyone universally knows WTF stands for. Here is a rule you can follow – if you google the acronym and the _first_ Wikipedia result does not explain what it is – then DON’T USE THAT ACRONYM!
14. Voice Discipline
Use Airpods or Earbuds – With today’s noice cancelling technology, using the computer’s speakers or your phone’s speakers / mic is kinda dumb. Just get a $25 earphone or win one of my LivePolls and I;ll send you an AirPod! BUT PLEASE DONT USE THE DEFAULT MIC & SPEAKER for your computer or your phone.
15. Calendar HOLDS
When emailing or slacking someone – and you propose/agree on a time to meet – PLEASE SEND THE CALENDAR invite within the next 5 minutes. Don’t wait 3 days to send a calendar invite – and book people’s calendar. The longer you wait, the less likely you are – to indeed get a slot in their calendar. We all are busy as fuck and our lives revolve around the calendar – its efficient. So PLEASE SEND THE CALENDAR INVITE as soon as you agree on at date/time – the benchmark is 5 mins.
16. Multi-Channel Connections – LinkedIn
- If you talk to a customer or email a customer – YOU Must find them on LinkedIn and send a connect request.
- If there are 6 people in a conference call or 6 folks in a email thread – then YOU MUST connect with all 6 of them.
- Clean up your LI page – it’s your CV/Resume
- If someone is ghosting you – you can now message them on LI!!
- Like & comment on content the leaders are generating / marketing is pushing.