Grinding On The Foundation: Management + Systems

In now by Michael Michelini

What Mike Michelini is up to Now – June 19 – 25, 2022

Listen as audio here [1.5 minutes long] (or scroll down for text)

Image / quote – from Book “Attitude 101” by John Maxwell

Happy Father’s Day ! To my own dad, to the other dads out there, and to me. Having a 8 and 6 year old is a handful – my wife is super woman, but even still it is a lot for me as well. Will try to relax and enjoy it a bit today. But as always, the week plan and “up to” points:

* Payroll / Finance / HR – painful parts for me, but we have built up an amazing team to do this and working to introducing a new process for payroll. Also the monthly reports have been getting so much better.
* Twitter Spaces on Handshake blockchain – This Tuesday 4pm PST (my Wednesday 7am HK time). Just want to discuss things openly as a community should.
* GFA Kids tech and workflow – new systems, lots of tweaks in the workflow – hope to get the new system going this week.

Those who want to read the full points, here’s the company wide plan below:

For those who want to hear the full week plan for Shadstone Limited, Mike’s company (removing sensitive info) – here it is:

Week Plan June 19 – 25, 2022 Shadstone Limited

Another brutal week in the business world. Crypto continues to be punished – I read somewhere this is the longest streak of weekly downtrends in history (11 weeks down). So max pain.

But we are resilient, we are diversified, and we are a creative team.

Will keep today’s letter short as I slept in (father’s day right!) and will go out for the day w/ the fam.

Been somewhat keeping this under the radar, but starting to consider moving to Philippiens w/ the family. The Thailand immigration process seems too annoying for what we are trying to do (be an entrepreneur and do entrepreneur schooling) – and have this feeling PI may be more open to it.

Main points:
* HR / Finance / Management – this has been years in the making and will probably never be “done” but we have made massive strides within the last 6 months – 9 months – Nessa is rocking our HR dept, and Martha has been a shining star (finally someone who can handle our financial chaos!!). We are hoping to introduce a whole new payroll process (we are putting an add-on to Shadstone portal) that will streamline things. It has been like 7 years since we updated the payroll process ,and the team and systems have changed quite a bit since then.
* Excalibur Brothers – the first product (polishing cloth) should be arriving in USA ports this week, will take a couple more weeks to get to Amazon, need to prepare our launch, 2 more products (flask + leather glass case) are getting close to completion – need QC/testing/logistics prep. And the fourth (shot glass set) seems delayed due to financial reasons on the franchisee (truly it is tough times for all it seems!)
* GFA Kids – its really investing in the workflow and IT. The Classin software seems to have helped a lot, next is further optimizing the booking flow (Classin doesn’t do booking) with app.structure.info ) . Also looks like we will finally spin it off into its own standalone website (for emails, and more) at GFAkids dot com (tbd). While the name will change, the logo will remain. Thee idea is to unify all these GFA units (GFAkids, GFAVIP, GFA “media”) – through the logo. It isn’t the “Global From Asia” words that are the brand – it is GFA – and more specifically -the logo – which represents independence and strength.
* Now Shenzhen – David has been testing selling physical products, kombucha, and a deal is in the works that he says is favorable. Also tons of optimization and tweaks for the site, but also need to consider the “2.0” plan, the amount of investment in 1.0, and the long term strategy and features of the website.
* Akitai – still post-lawsuit fund unlocking processing. Really frustrating. But pushing ahead and also getting Luciano involved.
* SkyInclude – Phenie made a really nice new site design to integrate more as a registrar. Need to deploy, and also still awaiting TSLA 64 bit records on Sajan said. Also hosting a Twitter spaces on the state of the blockchain this Tuesday 4pm PST (our 7am in Manila/HK time)
* SEO dept -fishing lab got destroyed in May update from Google, looking at other sites, working out who on the SEO dept is responsible for which site and task.
* Indigitus – never ending restructuring discussions, new investors in discussion, and more.
* Clients – transitioning old clients, confirming new clients. Working on more teamwork, David getting involved more on new accounts.

And so much more.

While I have to admit, I have been under extreme stress and pressure – I am so amazed at our team. The ability, the leadership, the dependability – has been better than ever. For those who don’t know – keeping our team together is my number one priority in business and we are making adjustments in the business side in order to not just “survive” this changing world, but to THRIVE.

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