Resources
There are so many helpful tools out there to help you in your business, but it can be quite overwhelming to know which ones are better, or which ones will save you more time, or which ones will be necessary in your online journey. I’ve GOT you!
Well, I have researched enough for both of us – check them out and “skip the line!” These will give you the fast-track to success!
p.s. Some of these are my affiliate links, which means I may get a commission for recommending the product, at no cost to you. However, I only tell you about tools I use and find helpful in my own journey.
Tools for your Success
HOSTING: BLUEHOST
I created my website on www.wordpress.org and hosted it on Bluehost. This is a solid, reliable hosting company, and their team has excellent customer service when you have technical issues or questions.
HOSTING: BLUEHOST
Get It Now !BUILDER: ELEMENTOR
I have tried several website builders looking for one that is the easiest to use and has the most customizable capabilities and this is IT! Especially if you use this website builder with the Astra Theme, which is next on my list. Together, they create an amazing website which you can totally build yourself if you wanted to!
BUILDER: ELEMENTOR
Get It Now !THEME: ASTRA
Looking for a theme that has the most customizable capabilities for your website, but is easy to use? Astra is beautiful and has everything you would want in a theme. I upgraded to the Mini Agency Bundle, which gives you access to more pre-made blocks to use in your website and that are totally easy to customize! And again, works beautifully with the Elementor page builder.
THEME: ASTRA
Get It Now !ACTIVE CAMPAIGN
After SO much research, I have found Active Campaign to have the best value for all the functionality an email service provider can have! The Lite plan is perfect if you’re just starting out, but still has more advanced capabilities like tagging and segmenting and is pretty easy to use! I highly recommend it!
ACTIVE CAMPAIGN
Get It Now !CLICKFUNNELS
Instead of posting content and offering your opt-ins *hoping* that you get more leads, having a smart funnel strategy is hands-down the way to exponentially grow your business. Using Clickfunnels will increase your conversions and offer your customers the right pieces of content that they need in every step of their journey – and you have total control of this using Clickfunnels. I love this tool!
CLICKFUNNELS
Get It Now !ZAPIER
Instead of posting content and offering your opt-ins with hopes that you get more leads, having a smart funnel strategy is hands-down the way to exponentially grow your business. Using Clickfunnels will increase your conversions and offer your customers the right pieces of content that they need in every step of their journey – and you have total control of this using Clickfunnels. I love funnels.
ZAPIER
Get It Now !TYPEFORM
Typeform is a survey tool which is perfect for sending out surveys to your list or your ideal customer to get to know what their needs are, what their struggles are – the list goes on! You can make them look customized and cute, unlike some other survey tools, which can be boring. People love when you’re wanting to know more from THEM!
TYPEFORM
Get It Now !TEACHABLE
Teachable is a powerful yet simple to platform to host your online course(s) or coaching business. It has the capacity to organize your videos and any related content for your online course and anyone without technical knowledge can set up their course in a matter of a few hours. The delivery of your course is professional, and clients truly enjoy the experience.
TEACHABLE
Get It Now !CANVA
This could be my ALL-TIME favorite tool! It is super simple to use – you can literally create anything! From presentations to freebies to logos – and you don’t have to be a graphic designer. There is a free version and a Canva Pro version, which unlocks tons more templates, photos to use, and more! I love how you can organize all of your creations with the pro version to keep all of your designs in different folders, and you can set up your brand colors and fonts with the pro version, too. You’ll love this tool for your business!
CANVA
Get It Now !ENVATO ELEMENTS
If you’re looking for more photos, the perfect font, awesome graphics, templates for presentations or for social media graphics, THIS is the place! You could get lost on this site for hours seeing ALL the elements you’d like. All you have to do is register your project (in your account) for the element you are using it for, and you’re covered by their license. This makes it uncomplicated and there are tons of creative elements!
ENVATO ELEMENTS
Get It Now !TRELLO
Whether you’re looking for a place to capture all of your knowledge and brainstorms, or to organize a project, Trello is an excellent project management tool. You can create different boards with different “lists” and in each list are your tasks associated with each project. You can move things around easily, add attachments to your cards, give tasks a due date – keeping all of your thoughts and tasks in an easy layout. Customizing the background of each board with beautiful photos creates various moods for each board, which is inspirational and fun! You can do most everything with the free version – even collaborating with a VA or up to 10 team boards! I use this more for capturing my thoughts, collecting information, listing out possible content ideas, etc.
TRELLO
Get It Now !ASANA
Another project management tool that has similar functionality to Trello is Asana. In my opinion, Asana has better workflow functionality. It has a broader set of features, and works with larger projects that might have more details to follow. One helpful feature is that Asana allows you to not only see everything in the “List” view like Trello, but it also allows you to view tasks in a calendar view and also a timeline view, which allows you to see more of the sequence and where the project is along the line. The free version is great and should be fine for many!
ASANA
Get It Now !LASTPASS
With all the tools you need as an online entrepreneur, security is important. LastPass is one of the best tools to keep all of your logins and passwords safe. It seemed overwhelming to me at first thinking about signing up, but once I started using it, it was simple and user-friendly. In addition, if you have a VA that helps you or a couple of team members, you can share your links with them through LastPass and they can have access without giving them the burden of your login and password information. It’s a win/win.
LASTPASS
Get It Now !BONJORO
Stand out from the competition with this one! I love this tool! You can send customized videos to your clients to build relationships and trust, or send a “Welcome” video to a new customer that just bought your online course. The uses for this tool seem endless! Using Bonjoro in your business can instantly create positive feelings and build a strong connection with your customer right out of the gate! Everyone will be so impressed – and it only takes a matter of 30-60 seconds to create from your phone!
BONJORO
Get It Now !iMOVIE
If you are a Mac user, this is one of the strongest video editing programs that is FREE. There are so many features that allow you to produce a professional looking video to use for your business. I have used this for many years and have been able to figure out many techniques with iMovie to produce polished video content.
iMOVIE
Get It Now !LOOM
If you need a simple way to record your screen and give feedback to your VA, or if you need to explain a process of doing something, Loom is awesome! You can record just your screen and your voice, or you have the option to record the screen and yourself in a small frame. Loom is also great for showing your students techniques or answering their questions in your Facebook groups. The free version works great for many instances, but the pro version gives you more recording and editing tools, if you need them and is very reasonable.
LOOM
Get It Now !ZOOM
Zoom is a powerful platform that allows you to host video meetings, engage live with your students or clients in a private Facebook group and record these sessions to post later for others to learn. There is so much capability here with Zoom – you can start out free for many things and upgrade as you grow your business and have more complex needs.
ZOOM
Get It Now !FILMORA SCRN
Filmora’s editing solutions are amazing. Filmora Scrn is one of the best and easy to use programs for high quality screen recordings. It is for both Mac and Windows users, and it has a full editing suite. I’m sure you have heard of Screenflow for Mac or Camtasia for Windows, which are great programs, too. But what you get with Filmora Scrn for the price – this can’t be matched! It’s awesome!
FILMORA SCRN
Get It Now !LUMEN5
I’ve included Lumen5 as it has some really cool features. It’s more expensive if you’re looking for better quality resolution and want to create more videos per month, but it does have a Free Forever plan. Check this out!! Lumen5 can help you repurpose your text content into video! You highlight the text you want to include, and it produces the clips, adds photos and colors to the text to make a professional looking video in minutes! This is perfect for creating different content styles and adding video when you don’t want to be ON camera so much. You can also create some great video ads, as they have nice looking templates!
LUMEN5
Get It Now !KAPWING
Kapwing is an online editing tool that is so robust and is newer and is not as well-known – I’m happy to share this tool with you! It can do SO much – it’s great for editing, resizing your videos for different platforms, adding captions, creating memes – the list goes on! It’s truly powerful and I know it will be a tool that you will use and it will make creating and editing videos even easier.
KAPWING
Get It Now !SHOTCUT
Shotcut is one of the better editing programs that is compatible with Mac, Windows and Linux and it is FREE! This is a robust editing tool with all sorts of features, which can get quite advanced, if you wanted to play with more of the tricks. It’s great if you have multiple video tracks, as iMovie only allows you 2 tracks, (meaning if you have a couple of cameras and want to use different angles). Another advantage is that you can run it as a portable app on an external drive, if you don’t have enough space on your computer.
