Being able to run your business effectively means using awesome tools that don’t absorb a ton of your time just to use. Here are the ones that I use to make business a snap.
Invoicing
I’ve been invoicing clients with FreshBooks for years and let me just say it rocks. Clients love the ability to see a complete history of their invoices, and it’s super simple to turn time records and estimates into invoices and then either email or mail them out. You can brand everything (invoices, estimates, login page), and customize just about everything – and it’s really easy to do.
The killer feature here though is that you can see when your clients and prospects logged in and when they viewed your invoices or estimates. No more “did you get the invoice 60 days ago?!” You’ll know if your clients saw the invoice. Killer.
Try FreshBooks for free today >>
Productivity
Sharing files with clients and teammates, or just making sure your valuable digital stuffs are backed up is super easy with Dropbox. Working on every computer and major mobile device, quickly and securely sync and share files from wherever you are. Not much more to say – it’s bad ass and highly affordable.
Evernote is one of those apps you can’t live without once you start using it. You can keep text and voice notes on any computer or mobile device, keep is in sync across all your devices (read: computers and smart phones), have a full online backup, share notes with others (like your clients), and much more. The notes are really rich too – add pictures, bullet points, fonts, and more. Evernote truly stands up to its tagline: remember everything. With Evernote you won’t have to – it’ll do it for you.
I use Skype for everything – video and audio interviews, talking with friends all over the world, and sending files to clients while chatting with them on a video call. The amount of awesome you get for free is unreal. If you aren’t on Skype you need to be. I mean hell, it’s free! And even though the Windows version has more features than the Mac version, I still love it.
When it comes to managing tasks there are a literal ton of apps you can use. I’ve tried many, I built one for Agile teams, and when all the smoke had cleared Things came out the winner.
Things is a Mac app that has complimentary iPhone and iPad apps. So I can be walking my dog, think of something I have to do, whip out my iPhone and put it into Things, then sync with my Mac when I get back to the wifi. Tasks can be tagged, scheduled, given priority, added to a project, and assigned to other peeps. It’s pure productivity boosting.
Give Things a try and get more done >>
Video Tools
When it comes to creating screencasts to sell or demonstrate products, or just create a quick movie to show a client what you’re talking about, ScreenFlow is where it’s at. Install this little ditty on your Mac and you’re ready to easily and quickly create and export screencasts or other videos. We use ScreenFlow here on all the interview videos. Makes editing easy and quick.
Try ScreenFlow for free today >>
Email Marketing
Email marketing is the cornerstone of every business. You gotta use an email list to continually communicate with your clients. We love AWeber for it’s ease of use, excellent (low) pricing, free training, and awesome albeit unnecessary support – it just works and works well.
Market Research
And speaking of marketing, make it much easier to do keyword research and keep track of where you rank compared to your competition with Market Samurai. Wondering what keywords and phrases to use in your next blog post or on a sales page? Market Samurai can help do you figure it out. Paired with the hours of SEO training, Market Samurai is our keyword tool of choice.
Try Market Samurai free today >>
WordPress Hosting
Installing WordPress is easy, but it’s even easier to not have to install it at all! And you want to be sure you can easily add any theme, plugin, or whatever to your WordPress site. And you want to be sure you can call your host whenever you have an issue, and that that company cares about you being their customer. That’s where Page.ly comes in. Page.ly powers more than 10 of my WordPress sites along with those of my clients. Their support – when needed – is always available, and they really make WordPress a snap with killer features like automatic security upgrades and backups. If you use WordPress, and I recommend you do, choose Page.ly.
Get set up in less than 2 minutes >>
WordPress Themes
StudioPress is the maker of the Genesis framework, that runs many popular sites including ChrisBrogan.com, ProBlogger, CopyBlogger, and many more. I use the Genesis framework for a number of my sites as well.
Fantastic looking themes, a solid framework underneath it all, and competitive pricing make StudioPress themes a must have for every entrepreneurs toolbox.
When it comes to getting an impressive looking site up and going quickly for little money, WooThemes helps make it happen. With more than 75 premium themes to choose from, chances are you’ll find a design you can easily customize to impress your customers. Can’t pick just one? For a measly $125 you can get them all!
Premium WordPress Plugins
I first met the rocketgenius team at WordCamp Boston and were impressed with their openness and team spirit. They also make a kick ass forms plugin for WordPress – Gravity Forms – that helps you quickly create customized forms and add them to any post or page. With Gravity Forms you can email anyone you want after a form is filled out (including the person that filled out the form), add standard validated fields, pre-populate form fields, and much, much more. For $39 for a single site, it doesn’t get any better or easier.
Check out Gravity Forms today >>
OIOpublisher is an ad manager that focuses on maximising your revenue, saving you time, and keeping you in complete control of your ad space. This php ad management script can be used to sell and serve ads on any website. It can even be used as a WordPress plugin right out of the box!
Make advertising on your site super easy today with OIO Publisher >>
With WishList Member you can add a membership area to any WordPress site. With a ton of options you can make your memberships free or paid. It also integrates with services like AWeber, and is fully compatible with all of the other WordPress plugins I recommend here. I use it on 5 sites of my own and it’s very easy to set up.
Add a membership area to your site today with WishList Member >>
Social Media And Affiliate Marketing Tools
With LinkTrackr you can track all of your referral links in one, easy to manage place, links like Amazon books, affiliate products,and more. In addition, you can save your server from the additional overhead from yet another WordPress plugin.
Try LinkTrackr today for free and get access to free e-books that help you get started with affiliate marketing.
When you have more than one Twitter account to manage it starts to get hectic. Tweet spinner makes it much easier to Automatically de-spam/archive your DM inbox, schedule the rotation of Twitter profiles & designs, configure filters to find more receptive followers and identify abandoned/spam accounts, and much more.
Start using Tweet Spinner today for free >>
I’ve been using HootSuite since it came out and it’s only gotten better. Easily manage multiple social media account (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, many more), schedule tweets, get stats on individual tweets, see the klout score of anyone, and much more.
HootSuite is the tool for anyone serious about using social media for marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Networks
Shareasale.com is the affiliate home for many products from companies including DIY Themes (Thesis), StudioPress (Genesis), Copyblogger Media (Scribe), and many others.
See if shareasale.com has a product you want to get behind >>
