As a Certified Financial Planner with over a decade of experience and features in iconic publications like The New York Times, it’s appropriate to say that R.J. Weiss knows a thing or two about cash flow.
When R.J. started a website back in 2016 to share money-management advice to others, he never dreamed that within four years it would grow to be a full-blown publishing company, fittingly called The Ways To Wealth, which now reaches over four million (yes, million!) people yearly. All that glitters may be gold, after all.
From saving tips, to earning more, to better investing strategies, the company shares advice, insights, and recommendations to help people better manage their hard-earned cash.
The Ways To Wealth’s mission is to find ways to help the average person improve their financial lives. These are often the people who can most benefit from increased financial literacy—the ones for whom financial education can have the greatest impact on their quality of life.
R.J. now proudly has a small team of independent contractors who he works with on different areas of the business. R.J. and his team quickly realized the need to have a single source of truth and organization hub to house their projects—and one that wouldn’t break the bank. That’s why they decided to invest in Trello.
Using Trello To Manage Content Creation
Trello came into the picture as the team started to grow. Suddenly, there were way too many moving parts, and one-off messages and email threads unsurprisingly weren’t getting the job done. Important details were getting lost in the mix, and it was apparent that the team was starting to experience the same collective headache and feelings of overwhelm.
This continued until one day when the Managing Editor of the website recommended the team start using Trello Business Class for content production as well as other projects within the business. They bet their bottom dollar that it would offer a lot more than an email chain ever could. And they were right.
There are multiple people involved in the production of content, including R.J., an editor, a writer, and a designer, so having a space where they could see their entire workflow’s segmented stages had them feeling like they hit the jackpot.
“As the team behind The Ways To Wealth has grown, I can’t see any better way of keeping everyone on the same page. At any given moment in time, every team member knows exactly what needs to get done, who is responsible for getting that done, and when the completed task is due.” - R.J. Weiss
The team organized their SEO Content Creation Board the way that many teams do—with lists that work from left to right. On the left is a list for content ideas, and on the far right is a list for content that has gone through the entire creation, editing, and review process, all the way to being published on the website.
The team’s lists include:
- Idea: Whether the team does a group brainstorm or one member has an aha-moment in the shower, any and all ideas can be added as cards under this list.
- Outline: Once an idea has been approved to become a piece of content, it moves to the outline stage, which includes creating a framework for how the content piece will be structured.
- Draft: Once the outline is approved and ready, the card is moved to this list until the rough draft is completed by the writer.
- Copyedit: After the rough draft is completed, the card is moved to this list for the editor to read, revise, and provide feedback on.
- Ready: As soon as the rough draft has been finalized, it’s moved to this list, which is essentially an ‘approved and in queue to published’ list.
- Published: Once the content piece has gone live on the website, the card reaches its final destination in this list.
This gives the team a quick visualization of everything they have in the editorial pipeline—and, importantly, where it is in the pipeline—at any given moment. To the right of “Published,” there are also lists for things like one-off projects, site problems, and resources.
“What we love the most about Trello is its simplicity. There are many great project management solutions on the market, but we’ve found that many are so full of options and features that they can encourage unnecessary complexity. Trello does the opposite; it helps us reduce the complexity of our systems and processes, keeping our workflow visual and streamlined while still providing enough features to get the job done.” - R.J. Weiss
Diversify Your Portfolio With Trello Power-Ups
The team’s Content Production board wouldn’t be the same without the Power-Ups that fuel its efficiency. Below are a few Trello features that the team relies on to strike gold on their deadlines.
Advanced Checklists
As R.J. passionately states it, “We couldn't live without checklists”. As users of Trello Business Class, the team has access to Advanced Checklists which offer even more capabilities than a standard checklist on a card.
Each card within the SEO Content Creation Board is populated with an Advanced Checklist named “Article To-Do List”. There are 17 different items to check off in order for an article to go from the outline phase to the published phase.
Many checklist items will have a team member assigned to the action item, so it’s easy to identify who is responsible for the progression of the article to its next stage of development. The team can also view the subtask due dates at large within Calendar View.
Custom Fields
The Custom Fields are another feature that's a must-have for The Ways To Wealth team. In each custom field, we link to the Google Doc containing the written content. This keeps the doc itself front and center, so we avoid having to find the link within a long conversation.
Card Repeater
In order to always offer the most up-to-date information on a regular basis, the team came up with a brilliant system. Each published post is updated on a regular basis with fresh information. To do this, the team uses the Card Repeater Power-Up, which allows the card to reappear on the board when it’s time to update the content.
Card Snooze
On a similar note, the team uses the Card Snooze Power-Up when running short-term A/B tests. For example, the team recently tested a new content layout for their articles. The goal was to test out this new layout for one week and then examine the results. To have the card reappear in a week, they use the Card Snooze feature to remind them when it’s time to go in and analyze the data.
Write A Blank Check For Limitless Collaboration
With a streamlined process, the team at The Ways To Wealth is able to work together more efficiently, crank out more content, and ultimately, guide more people on their financial journey.
“We’re able to spend much more time doing the work instead of communicating about doing the work. In the end, both our productivity and our quality of work increases, because each of us can focus on the task at hand.” - R.J. Weiss
Don’t let all of this new Trello knowledge burn a hole in your pocket. There are many ways to put these new tips to work by browsing Trello Templates and choosing one to start using with your team.
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