Hello, hello, hello, friend!

And welcome back to First Class Operations!

This is your Captain Kuba speaking.

Happy Friday!

We’ve got two exciting webinars coming up, partnering with companies literally around the globe.

Plus, an extra large helping of ZenPilot content—podcasts, blogs, webinar replays, all that good stuff.

Let’s dive right in.

The soundtrack for this edition of First Class Operations is Heaven Is a Place on Earth by Belinda Carlisle. It just popped in my head the other day. Instant mood booster. 😊

Captain's Address

🥪 Keanu Reeves’ favorite sandwich

A couple years ago, I opened up Reddit to find my favorite thread ever:

An AMA with Keanu Reeves.

From Matrix through Constantine to John Wick, I’m a huge Keanu Reeves fan. (Isn’t everyone?)

So that AMA was a goldmine of insights from my favorite man in Hollywood.

One of the questions:

“What’s your comfort food?”

As part of the answer, Keanu shared his favorite type of sandwich:

Peanut butter and honey.

I’d tried peanut butter and jelly but… honey?

Needless to say, I tried making one pretty much right away.

Perfection. Soooooo good. I was instantly addicted.

(Believe me, reader, I am having one right now as I’m typing this. Apologies to my laptop keyboard. And my dietary plan for today.)

“Okay, but what did it teach you about agency operations?”, I hear absolutely nobody ask—but I’ll answer anyway.

My takeaway is: it’s worth it to listen to the experts.

(Keanu may not be an expert sandwich chef, but he’s definitely a top authority on what is best in the world. After all, he is part of what’s best in the world.)

You’ll never know what arcane techniques the experts have discovered.

Keanu knows kung fu. And he knows sandwiches. And it’s worth listening to his thoughts on that.

On the other hand, at ZenPilot we know all about ClickUp, agency operations, and creating clarity into what everyone is supposed to working on on your team. If you’d like to find inspiration for your ops and project management, book a call with our team and we’ll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

In-Flight Announcement

🇦🇺 🇳🇱 Webinars with Globital and Growth Tribe

ZenPilot speakers (including yours truly) will be featured in a couple webinars in the coming days:

[Webinar invite, August 28] The Tools And Habits You Need To Stop Chaotic Project Management with Jakub Grajcar (hosted by Globital)

On Wednesday, August 28th, I’ll have the pleasure of being a guest speaker on a webinar hosted by Globital, a global white label agency originating from Australia.

We’ll cover:

• the 1-3-5 Formula designed to introduce clarity in your project management;
• how to pick the right project management tool;
• the tried-and-tested hierarchy of spaces, folders, and lists—optimal for agency businesses;
• the habits you need to build to make your PM platform a reliable source of truth;
• how to help team members manage their time better;
• how to become a process-driven team to improve efficiency;
• hard-won lessons on why project management falls apart for agencies—and how to build a system that lasts.

If you’ve been looking for a ZenPilot webinar at a different time of day than “American lunch time” / “European end-of-business-day”, this is your chance!

It’ll be 8am my time when the webinar starts, actually. You’ll see I can bring that morning energy. 💪

👉 Sign up here.

✨

[Webinar invite, September 5] 7 Project Management Lessons from 8-Figure Companies with Gray MacKenzie (hosted by Growth Tribe)

On Thursday, September 5th, ZenPilot CEO Gray MacKenzie will be a guest speaker on a webinar hosted by Growth Tribe, a leading European-based training company teaching cutting-edge skills including data, A.I., innovation, growth marketing, and UX design.

Gray will take you on a deep dive into the systems, processes, tools, and habits that have enabled 8 and 9-figure companies to run world-class project management and deliver incredible work efficiently and profitably.

We’ll cover:

• Which tools are the best to make project management simple and make work visible;
• How and where to build processes so they’ll actually get used and updated;
• Why ‘clarity is kindness’ and how that affects setting expectations with your team;
• How to build a strong sense of accountability in your team;
• How to start making data-driven decisions to identify and execute the most important work.

👉 Sign up here.

In-Flight Magazine

🛫 New from ZenPilot

Here’s our latest content for you to enjoy.

Podcasts:

• [Agency Journey] Growing a 300-Person Global White Label Agency with Damian Papworth
• [Agency Journey] Niching Down, Video Content Mastery, and Time Tracking for Agency Growth with Tycho Luijten

Videos from our YouTube channel:

• [Jeff video] How to Set Up Your ClickUp Inbox and Notifications
• [Jeff video] Best Practices for Using Teams in ClickUp
• [Webinar replay] The ClickUp Champion: The Role Used by 3,000+ Teams to Get ClickUp Right

Blogs:

• ClickUp vs. Teamwork.com for Agencies
• The 5 Most Important Operational Habits Your Agency Needs to Scale
• This Is What Your Agency Project Management System Should Look Like
• Our Exact Process to Streamline Your Operations in ClickUp

On The Radar

🧠 Content from the ZenPilot network

Here’s some inspiration from our Pilots on social media. And by social media I mean LinkedIn.

🧑‍🏫 From our Productivity Professor Jeff:

• "Onboarding new employees and running 1-on-1s is easy in ClickUp."
• On using ClickUp to send automated emails to clients.
• "Stop overcomplicating your statuses in ClickUp."
• "Before you switch project management systems, do this."

⚾ From our CEO Gray:

• "The 3 biggest project management mistakes I see agencies make."
• "Once your agency hits 10 FTEs and beyond, you’ll likely hit two kinds of problems..."
• "Accountability is the #1 factor that separates high performing teams from the rest."
• On why daily stand-ups will fall out of fashion.

💫 Also, Georgina from our Ops team shared a fun little accidental sync-up moment from the ZenPilot Ops L10 call.

And how have you been? What would you like to see more/less of in this newsletter? Let me know in an email reply. Or add me on LinkedIn and let’s chat.