This is the Unbreakable Business newsletter - created just for COOs and Operations Teams who want to build a company that won’t fall apart.

In this issue, I’m gonna run through the non-obvious parts of running a WORLD CLASS remote company. In my opinion, remote work is here to stay - so it’s pretty important to figure out how to not suck at it.

Today, we’ll cover:

• 📹 How to take your Zoom meetings to the next level

• ✍️ How to to be clear and actionable

• ✅ How to create an airtight weekly, monthly, and quarterly system

Enjoy!!

🤝 Working From Home vs. Being A Remote Company

We all remember how it started - when the whole world shut down 4 years ago and working from home became the ‘norm’.

Most companies begrudgingly dealt with it…not realizing that it would change how we work forever.

But there’s a huge difference between companies that “dealt with it”…and companies that actually decided to be GOOD at it. I call these companies “remote on purpose” - and many of the best ones were doing remote work before it was cool 😂

Being remote on purpose is an active decision. It’s a skill.

It’s a lot more than Zoom meetings, Slack channels, and sweatpants. That’s not being a remote company - it’s just doing some work from home. They’re two different things.

In this issue, I’m going to run through the top 4 “non-obvious” things you need to NAIL if you want to build an incredible culture, grow fast, and truly lean into the remote work movement.

Let’s get after it.

🎙️ Dial In Your Setup

Your dark video feed and shitty microphone aren’t good enough.

Hah…you thought I was gonna tell you to wear a collar shirt or something, right? Yuck.

I’m talking about your TECH setup. If nearly 100% of your interactions with your team are going to be done over Zoom, it’s worth your time to dial the setup in and have some PRESENCE.

You wouldn’t go to the office, sit in a dark room, and mumbling at everyone, right? Same thing applies to your remote team - the meeting experience skyrockets when we can all see and hear each other clearly.

I know what you’re thinking - “Matt, that stuff is expensive - I can’t force everyone to buy a DSLR.”

First off, there are definitely some setups that are cheaper than going “full professional” w/ a DSLR camera…but also, you should consider offering a tech stipend for your team members. We don’t expect employees to shell out for WiFi at the office or pay for their own computers, so why not pitch in for their at-home setup?

I even ask people how their work from home environment is going during 1:1s. It’s that important.

Encourage people to re-invest in themselves. When they upgrade, your business upgrades.

🚀 Become A Master Facilitator

Being an effective communicator is important - get good at doing it over video.

I’m allergic to shitty meetings. I mean, obviously - I think we all are.

If you’re leading a meeting, you are opting in to make it awesome. You are completely responsible for the outcome.

For every meeting on my calendar, I make sure I’ve got answers to these four questions:

1. What are we doing here?

➡️ I always identify exactly why we’re here and the outcomes we need to accomplish. Leave no room for interpretation - that’s a recipe to waste a bunch of time. Why are we here? Let’s do it and go away. If we finish up early and I get to put some time back into the calendar for myself AND my team, that’s a win.

2. Who needs to participate?

➡️ No one wants to come to a meeting to watch 3 people talk to each other for an hour. Rather than defaulting to the regularly scheduled invite list, take a minute to figure out who ACTUALLY has a vested interest and can affect the outcomes.

3. Are we recording & posting notes?

➡️ Running a remote company is basically a cheat code for avoiding he said/she said situations. When you hold all your meetings over video, the details will never be up for debate. That is, as long as you hit record 🔴

Let’s take it a step further - because who the hell has time to re-watch an entire meeting recording to grab specifics? Upgrade your meeting recordings with AI tools like this one:

If you still aren’t convinced about AI transcription - I get it - at least do yourself a favor and start recording your meetings.

If you use Zoom, set your default to cloud recording ⬇️

If you don’t use Zoom, I can't help you but hopefully whatever you’re using can do this too 😂 

Getting the notes from the recording is only half the battle, though.

For every meeting that has more than 2 people in it, post the notes in a public Slack channel.

Notes should cover the following items:

1. Who attended the call

2. What data was reviewed (links out to dashboards / reports)

3. What critical decisions were made

4. What are the next action items w/ DRIs

Working in public Slack channels is a great way to keep everyone accountable, keep all the knowledge searchable, and have a record of your commitments.

4. Do you have music?

It’s the little things that level up your meeting from good to awesome.

I have a ‘hype up’ playlist for the team as they enter our monthly company-wide meeting 🎉. Click play right before you let everyone in and get ready to be entertained - it’s so fun to watch their videos populate the meeting, heads bobbing along to the song 😂

I also have a “chill vibe” playlist for those moments when we’re all writing things down. You know, so we aren’t all just sitting in weird silence

Obviously, I don’t play music in every meeting - but it’s great to have the playlists ready to go for times I do need them.

📊 Default To Writing

You may know me as Matt Verlaque, but my team knows me as “The Writer Downer” ✍️

I take my notes seriously - and you should, too. You’re going to have so many decisions floating around - you need actual written proof of what everyone agreed to and when.

You ARE going to forget what you talked about. Stop relying on your memory.

You’re not going to forget everything, but I promise some of the things you forget will come back to bite you in the butt.

Maybe it’ll be something you agreed to, something someone else said, a decision.

Whatever it is, it could easily be avoided if it had simply been written down.

When you work remote, you’re gonna spend a lot of time working on projects asynchronously from the rest of the team. Taking the time to write things down will save an awful lot of headaches in the future.

You need to slow down to go fast.

Alright, now that you’re never going to forget anything ever again 😉 Let’s talk trackability:

Writing should be your primary form of communication. Every single decision, from the small stuff like meeting times to the big picture like distributing budgets, should be done in writing.

Everything needs to be trackable. Referenceable. Searchable. Memorialized in pen and ink (or Ariel and a Google Doc) - never up for question.

That includes the meeting notes we talked about earlier, too.

Writing everything down forces you to think through your own thoughts even better. It makes each discussion crystal clear. After the meeting is done, post the notes in a Slack channel or follow-up email so you can easily search for them when you need to reference the details.

So, writing everything down is hammered into your head, right? Good - you’ll thank me later 😏

🔎 Architect The Operations

Like any good business, you need to be organized.

Time is the most valuable asset the company has.

When you waste it, you’re wasting money. Each hour of any team member’s time is a portion of their salary.

It’s easy to drop the ball when you aren’t running into each other every day. You need to engineer a weekly, monthly, and quarterly cadence to keep the business running as a well oiled machine. Here’s how we do it ⬇️

• Weekly Syncs: Every department will hold their own sync every single week. This is your micro-lens - how you stay on top of day-to-day tasks, get team members un-stuck, and discuss updates of ongoing projects.

• Monthly Business Reviews: Let’s zoom out a bit - the leadership team should always be up-to-date on big decisions, projects, and company metrics. They’re in that position for a reason - among everything else, they’re smart. This is an opportunity to find out what’s going right, and what’s going wrong so you can steer the ship back in the right direction.

• Quarterly Planning Sessions: We schedule these out during the last two weeks of each quarter. These are the most important meetings of the year.

For you OG subscribers, you probably remember my issue on running a killer Quarterly Planning session - it’s that important, I’m talking about it again 😂

Does all this sound like work? Good - because it should. This is THE work. It’s not all roses and daisies out here, but this cadence is integral to ensure your business doesn’t go belly up because your remote team was too disconnected.

This is how the company runs.

Your business is a product, not a project - it's never done…just getting better month over month, year over year, forever.

📽️ Go To The Movies

Wanna jam on this in a video format? Check out my latest YouTube video where I go over these tips to run a killer remote team in under four minutes ⌚

Also, make sure you subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss awesome videos like this one.

🎯 Default To Action

Here are the key action steps you can take TODAY to put things in motion:

1️⃣ Step Up Your Game

Level up the gear, the software, how you spend your time, and add a few bells & whistles. Meetings shouldn’t suck and it’s honestly super easy to execute changes to make them a time well spent for everyone.

✅ Show up for your team - make the time they spend in meetings awesome.

2️⃣ Write It Down

As of now, you no longer rely on memory. You write every. damn. thing. down. And so does your team. You’re going to see improvements across the board: especially with communication and efficiency.

✅ Trackable. Referenceable. Searchable. When that’s true about your entire business, nothing will slip through the cracks.

3️⃣ Be Deliberate With Meetings

Let me tell you - I hate surprises. When you have a system to cover every aspect of the business, from daily tasks to big-picture decisions, surprises are rare.

✅ Run the business on a solid and consistent operational cadence.

I hope this was helpful - check out the links, build the cadences, and make sure that if you’re gonna be remote, you’re remote ON PURPOSE.

Running a remote business is a skill of its own if you wanna do it right. Remember - we’re remote ON PURPOSE. Make that clear with your actions.

Next week, I’ll be rocking through my top leadership tips for first-time managers - but even if you’re a seasoned vet, you still should probably read it and see what you pick up.

Always in your corner,

MV

📣 Overheard On The Interwebs

Creating A Murderboard

I gotta admit, I’ve never heard it CALLED a murderboard before…but this is one of my favorite exercises. In fact, it actually came up on a call with my leadership team last week.

Pretend that your sole focus in life is to destroy your company. Make a list of everything you’d do to bring it down.

I like to hit this from different angles - how would I do it if I was a competitor, how would I do it if I could control the market, etc.

All different ways - just try to kill it.

And then come up with a plan for each of those scenarios.

The best founders are a little paranoid 😉