2020 Must-Haves for the Business Owners

All jokes aside, I truly don’t think I could manage my business without different tools & apps. Today, I’m going to share those with you!

EMAIL MARKETING:

First and foremost, let me begin this by saying I have worked with Mailchimp for over ten years now. I’ve tried every tactic within them and found myself (and my clients) spending more time and energy (and money) designing newsletters than they should be. With that being said, in 2020, I recommend Flodesk all the way! Not only does it save me time (the newsletters are already designed and GORGEOUS!) but it’s also affordable. While Mailchimp (and most other providers) charge you based off the amount of subscribers you have, Flodesk doesn’t. Their price point of around $39 / month stays the same forever. If you use this link, you’ll also get half off your subscription.

CLIENT ONBOARDING:

Don’t come at me trying to sell any other platform because I won’t have it. Dubsado is THE number one in the game, let me tell you. When I first began my business, I spent so much time trying to keep on top of invoicing, contracts, etc. Dubsado handles all of that for me now! Everything  from when my client fills out the contact form to the contract, invoicing, proofs, etc are all automated through Dubsado. For less than $29 / month, it’s literally a no-brainer. I always tell a story about going to Hawaii with my family and knowing I wanted to FINALLY disconnect for my business for the first time ever. I spent WEEKS getting Dubsado ready and when I returned from the trip, not only did I have several new clients (who had already paid their deposits, signed their contract, and completed their onboarding homework), I even had one email me to thank me for responding so prompty. In reality, I hadn’t emailed anyone in days – HA! I set the entire system up myself to be personalized. Now, these days I do not automate my entire process because I want that personal connection back – but the option is there. Dubsado CHANGED my biz. It works for literally anyone with clients, invoicing, or even contracts. Signing digitally is where it’s at. You can use this signup link to get your subscription.

TEAM ORGANIZATION:

Hands down, Slack & Asana are my favorite ways to keep up with teams and stay on-task for every project we have at the moment. Slack is a more of a free texting software while Asana allows you to assign certain tasks to team members.

CALENDLY:

To schedule every consulting call with clients, I use calendly! It reminds both myself and the client and allows me to ask questions before they book.

PAYROLL:

For all payroll, we use Hubstaff! It’s easy to use and easy to setup. You can get 10% off by going to this link.

E-COMMERCE PLATFORM:

For both our free & purchasable PDFs (and all client sites), we use Shopify! You can use either the full store or just the minimal store with the buy button (see our shop page for an example of that!) You can grab Shopify for 2 weeks for FREE here.

ANXIETY + FOCUS:

Now, this may not be EXACTLY the business tool you were looking for but I can promise you it saves me a ton of stress. In order to maintain focus within my work and guard my mind from anxiety, I use MySoulCBD. And, why am I putting it here? Because I get alot of questions about how I stay so calm, so focused, and get so much accomplished being a mom. You can use the code “lovekait” for 10% off. For reference, I use the 500mg dropper once a day and it lasts all month. I also keep the gummies in my bag for the rough days!

BLUE LIGHT GLASSES

I get a lot of requests for the information on my favorite blue light glasses. I wear them all the time when I work on the computer and they’re under $20! Here’s the link for that.

SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULING:

We love using Planoly for scheduling our content for us and our clients’ accounts. It also allows you to track the analytics! Click here to test it out.