Using Notion as a Business Hub

One of the most challenging things for solopreneurs/entrepreneurs (outside of getting clients and making all the money) is finding and maintaining some sense of organization within their businesses.

If you are anything like most of BizMagic’s clients (and so very many entrepreneurs) you have files stored pretty much everywhere. You have them both on your computer and in the cloud — oftentimes on multiple cloud platforms, and these files are images, spreadsheets, audio files, video files, etc.

You also likely have a whole lotta platforms that you’re using to make your business run. You have your task management platform, then you have your CRM, then you have your business’ metrics tracker — all on separate platforms, making you feel just a littttle crazy and like your business is purging costs.

I. Have. Been. There.

All of this maddening chaos leads me to today’s post!

Today, I’m here to tell you about Notion and how you can use it as a hub in your business.

And, as an extra bonus, I’m not just going to tell you about Notion, I’m going to SHOW you how BizMagic uses it for our own business hub.

(By the way, I have no official affiliation with Notion and get no kickbacks for sharing this. I just LOVE THE CRAP out of it and want to share the thing that has been a true game changer for BizMagic and for several of our clients.)

First and foremost, if you’ve never heard of Notion before, your first question is probably, “What the heck is Notion?”

The quickest version in my own words: Notion is an online productivity-focused platform and workspace that allows you to do pretty much anything you want in it from taking notes, to creating databases, to embedding audio and video, to creating calendars, to allowing fully engaged collaboration with others.

This Wikipedia article describes it well: “Notion is a collaboration platform with modified markdown support that integrates kanban boards, tasks, wikis, and databases. The software is an all-in-one workspace for note-taking, knowledge and data management, and project and task management. It is a file management tool offering a unified workspace, allowing users to comment on ongoing projects, participate in discussions, and receive feedback. In addition to cross-platform apps, it can be accessed via most web browsers.”

I was first introduced to Notion through two clients who were both starting to integrate it into their businesses. I was utterly and completely blown away.

And fully overwhelmed.

Because you can do pretty much anything with it, the task of figuring out WHAT to do with it can be very daunting.

When you start out with your account, you are staring at a blank page. And with that blank page you have the opportunity to simply write text, start a basic table, start a more advanced table and database, embed images, video, audio, etc. You can color code text and organize it into columns.

The things you can do are pretty endless.

When I first started my own account, I had thankfully spent time in my clients’ accounts and had started wrapping my head around its structure and the potential it held. So I started building out my business hub slowly, and as I started to really understand the ways I could use it to streamline my systems and organization within BizMagic, it just kept growing.

Inside BizMagic’s Notion business hub we now have our Client Library and CRM, our main task manager (we abandoned Asana for this), our team member directory, code snippets, our branding information, our training videos and courses, and so much more. I also do ALL of my note-taking inside of Notion and it has been a game-changer!

So I thought I would save you the pain of trying to figure this all out on your own and give you a video tour of BizMagic’s Notion hub.

Though the video is a bit lengthy, coming in at about 23 minutes, it shows you all the ways we utilize Notion’s features and will hopefully get you excited about giving it a try for yourself.

While I recommend watching the whole thing to see all the ways we’re using it, if you’re only interested in using it as a CRM or Task Manager, etc., I’ve added some time stamps below the video so you can hop to the times that interest you the most.

Without further ado,

Watch the Notion BizMagic Business Hub tour:

Time Stamps:
3:00: Brand Hub
3:45: SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) database
5:55: Client Library (our CRM that includes potential client pipeline as well)
9:48: Note-taking
12:00: Team directory and team management
15:30: Video/training library
18:00: Marketing/metrics tracking
18:26: Content calendar
19:20: Photo library
19:53: Task manager

Is your mind blown yet?

Yeah, Notion does ALL of that, and wayyy more than we are even using it for right now.

As I mentioned above, Notion can feel a little overwhelming, so now that you’ve seen all it can do, if you want to start using it, it might be best that you start with some basic tutorials of how Notion works.

There are LOTS of platforms out there that can help you get organized and productive in your business. Notion has become my favorite, but of course, it doesn’t mean it’s right for you. The nice thing is it is free (and also really affordable should you dig it and want to pay for it) so you can sign up and just play around and start getting used to it.

I hope this was helpful for you and you’re brimming with ideas of what you can do in your own Notion business hub (or even your own Notion personal hub).

If you’d like to get this template and make it your very own, you can do that here!

If you’re a client and you want some help building out your Notion hub, contact your Client Manager and we can help you get going.

Not yet a client but are ready to chat with me and see if we could make a fabulous Notion-building team together? Sign up for a consultation and I’ll be looking forward to talking to you.

Or if you just aren’t sure that Notion is a good fit for you and you want to figure out what platform might be, still, reach out and we’ll talk about it.

That’s it for now! Thanks so much for reading.