productivity online business tools
Tool Time! In this episode of the podcast I share my favorite tools..well at least 5 of them! Admittedly, I’m a bit of a tool-junkie and love experimenting with new ones. Shiny object syndrome? Nah..not me! Okay, fine..maybe just a bit. The upside? You get to save time and hear about the best of the best. So, in no particular order, I bring you my must have tools to run your online business.

Schedule Once

Ever try planning a meeting with someone and you end up in email ping-pong hell? Where not only are you trying to figure out availabilities you also have different timezones to deal with?

Enter Schedule Once.

As the name implies, you schedule once.

When you create your Schedule Once account, you set your availabilities. It connects with your calendar and blocks off any existing meetings.

When someone wants to book time on your calendar, simply send them your schedule once link and they can select the time and zone that works best for them.

You get a notification and it’s booked in your calendar.  Et voila! End the email back and forth madness.

Boomerang

Boomerang is a  plugin for Gmail.

Just because you are hustling and working all hours of the day and night…*does not* mean your clients need to know.

Enter Boomerang. Reply to emails on your own time but schedule them out to go out with Boomerang at more appropriate times.

Have emails that you don’t need to deal with right now (webinar reminders, concert tickets..), Boomerang them to return at a specified date.

Social Media Management

Social media dashboards and scheduling tools. I personally use a combo of Hootsuite and Buffer.

Why not just use Twitter.com, you ask?

I use Hootsuite’s dashboard to get an overview of my Twitter lists, if there are conversations, keywords or hashtags I want to follow. I also use it to schedule out evergreen content like past episodes of my podcast or relevant blog posts.

I use BufferApp to curate and share content on the fly and like it’s ease of use as a browser plugin.

DropBox

Dropbox is a free service that lets you access your files from anywhere.

I use DropBox to easily share my raw podcast files with my podcast editor. With a shared DropBox folder, I can share files and access the edited files once they are ready. No need to email large files back and forth.

Similarly, when working with coaching clients, I use DropBox to share call recordings and pdfs.

And the beauty of it? It’s all in the cloud…accessible from anywhere, on any device.

Take a look at these 5 must have #tools to run your online business

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Google..well..everything.

Google Drive is first on my list. I do *everything* in there..from working on documents (like coming up withe new product ideas) to collaborating on retreat planning (with my partner who is 3000 miles away!)

Analytics: you need this on your site. And it’s free. Enough said.

Google+ and Hangouts: I looove this platform and especially the hangouts and hangouts on air. Super easy to jump on and broadcast panels, shows, coaching calls, webinars…you name it!

 

What are some of your favorite tools? Let me know in the comments! 

15 comments

  1. kiwimeg

    I also love Evernote, Thrive Solo for invoicing/time keeping/project planning, HelloSign (for getting contracts signed) and Momentum (a cool Chrome App that keeps me on track with what I need to do each day)

  2. MoxiePear

    Love this podcast as I am always looking for new apps to use for business…bit of a junky myself! I use Minigroup for client projects…it’s similar to basecamp but A LOT simpler.

  3. Kendra

    Wow…this was great! Have heard of most of these tools but have not yet begun to use them. Reading this makes me realize that perhaps it is time to get my act together with some of this stuff. Well ok, I actually do use Google Drive and I am another that loves Evernote!

  4. Nicole Liloia

    Thanks for these great tips on tools that I know will help me be more productive. I have used Dropbox for awhile now and I love it, but I definitely need to start using the other tools more often!

  6. CherylAnn Crego

    Great list! I haven’t found anything to beat Google Drive. I have some colleagues who prefer to use the Apple version, but that only works when everyone is on Apple. So, I still use both, but when it’s important that it be visible to all, Google Drive is my go to! I haven’t heard of Schedule Once. Going to look into that. Thanks for the great tips!

  7. Michael Knouse

    Thanks for the great list! I’ve been needing a solution like Schedule One for a while so I’m going to give it a try. Like others have said, Evernote and Google Drive are foundational tools for an online entrepreneur. I also use video a lot so for simple video editing on a Mac, nothing beats ScreenFlow. It’s even easier than iMovie and with more features. I also cannot live without LeadPages for easily creating landing pages, webinar invites, thank you pages, and sales pages. They have proven high-conversion templates that easily integrate with all email marketing providers like Mail Chimp and Aweber. I can create a webinar invite with my own branding and have it published in about 15 minutes.

    Thanks for sharing these great tools!

    • Sandy Sidhu

      I loooove LeadPages, too! I just started using them and *cannot* sing their praises enough.
      I haven’t used ScreenFlow but use Camtasia for Mac (got comfortable using it on PC few years back) and yes, also great tools.
      Thanks for stopping by, Michael 🙂