businesS TOOLS & software

GETTING STARTED

DOMAINS & HOSTING

  • NameCheap – To secure your domain.

  • GoDaddy – To secure your domain.

  • BlueHost – A great option for beginners with limited funds who choose Wordpress to build their site.

  • Hostgator – A great option for beginners with limited funds who choose Wordpress to build their site.

  • NameCheckr – Use this tool to check if a domain name you are interested in is taken across all relevant social media networks. This helps you to determine if you should register a domain before you fall in love with it. There’s nothing worse than finding the perfect domain name, purchasing it, then realizing the Twitter handle is taken and hasn’t been used since 2013.

ECOMMERCE PLATFORMS

  • Shopify – From the plethora of app integrations and ease of use to the 24 customer support, Shopify reigns as king of all e-commerce business platforms.

  • WooCommerce – WooThemes and WooCommerce are an option if you want to launch a shop and don’t have the money to invest initially. Just be aware you will need to manually manage your shop. This includes routinely updating third-part plugin updates, WooCommerce plugins, theme updates and the standard WordPress core files.

  • Square Space – If you want simple and clean elegant styling , Square Space is a solid good option.

  • BigCommerce –

WEBSITE THEMES

  • ThemeForest – A major go-to resource for quick, nicely designed and affordable website themes. Be sure to read reviews and ratings.

  • Template Monster – Great range of options and that they add new designs and integrations based on new market trends.

  • WooThemes –

  • StudioPress –

PAYMENT PROCESSING

  • Stripe – Payments are received from customers and transferred directly to your bank account.

  • PayPal – A quick an easy way to pay online that secures your information and protects you from bad purchases.

  • Google Wallet –

  • Squarespace -

  • Applepay -

  • Klarna -

  • Afterpay -

design

STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY, GRAPHICS & FONTS

  • Creative Market – A major resource for graphics, images and fonts!

  • Graphic River – Graphic River is a part of the Envato family of sites with tons of inexpensive resources.

  • Pixeden –

  • Mighty Deals –This site offers daily and weekly discounts that need to be purchased within a scheduled time period to receive the promotional price.

  • Icon Finder – They offer a paid option, but there are tons of free icons too.

  • iStockPhoto –

GRAPHIC SOFTWARE/APPS

  • PhotoShop –

  • Canva – Whether using their software online or through the mobile app, you can create professional custom graphics in minutes for a fraction of the cost.

  • Pages (for Mac) – Pages for Mac is a powerful word processor that gives you everything you need to create documents which look beautiful. It’s used for pages layouts, which might include worksheets, ebooks or presentations.

  • PickMonkey – PicMonkey Editor is an easy to use online photo editor similar to Canva. They offer simple tools for you to apply filters, add photo frames, add text to your photo, remove wrinkles, whiten teeth and more.

  • Pixelmator (for Mac) – If PhotoShop is out of your price range, consider Pixelmator. It’s the most innovative, fastest, full-featured, and powerful image editing app for the Mac that has everything you need to create and edit your images.

social media

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT

  • Buffer – This app is used daily to manage Facebook, Twitter and Google+. My team schedules posts weekly throughout my nextwork.

  • Postso – I use this app to manage my Instagram and Pinterest pages, automatically. You upload your photos, add captions, schedule a time and you’re done. Unfortunately, I don’t think they are accepting any more Instagram accounts.

  • Hootsuite – In the past I’ve used HootSuite, while I do like how I can follow conversations on Twitter I found the interface lacking and overwhelming at times.

  • Tweetful – This growth hack is used for Twitter. Once you sign up for the service it will automatically favorite and retweet content based on the hashtags and keywords selected.

  • Hopper – This is an online scheduler for Instagram. I have not used this app personally, but until I find a service I’m 100% happy with I like to keep my options open.

  • Instagress – This is a growth hack tool that will save you time and money while engaging audiences on Instagram. You create filters using specified keywords and hashtags. Then the app automatically comments and likes photos on Instagram and grows your following while you sleep.

  • Wisel.it – This is a paid scheduling app for Instagram. I have used Wisel.it when the Postso service was down and found it easy to navigate and schedule Instagram posts.

  • Meet Edgar – I currently do not use Meet Edgar, but have heard wonderful testimonials from it’s users. Its something I’m considering for the future. It will help me constantly repost and re-purpose old content. Currently you have to sign up and be invited.

  • Publish iPhone App – The iTunes stores says that Publish is the only app in the world that lets you post to Twitter & Instagram simultaneously. Publish, already being used by over 1 million users and is here to make your life easier. I have it installed, but I haven’t played around with it much.

  • Onlypult – Is another Instagram posting tool that offers scheduled posts, analytics and fast content development.

  • ScheduGram – Schedugram features web uploading of images or video, scheduling for later, and supports multiple Instagram accounts. it’s a favorite among social media and brand managers.

  • Padgram & Phonegram (iPhone and Android) – This is my secret weapon for Instagram. It allows me to comment, like and follow from multiple accounts. Not only that, but I can subscribe to pages I want to follow, without actually following them.

  • Iconosquare – Iconosquare helps you keep track of your total number of likes received, your most liked photos ever, your average number of likes and comments per photo, your follower growth charts and provides more advanced analytics.

EMAIL MARKETING

EMAIL campaign platforms

  • MailChimp – If you don’t have money to launch a brand, but need a good email service to stay in engaged with your customers, MailChimp would be my first option. It’s easy to use, has drag and drop templates and integrates with all major blogging and shopping cart software. Plus it’s free if you have less than 500 subscribers.

  • Klaviyo – This has the most seamless integration with Shopify (with reasonable pricing). It offers access customer purchasing behaviors similar to InfusionSoft.

  • InfusionSoft – This is considered the big boy of e-commerce emailing and customer engagement. You can create email workflows based on customer behaviors.

  • Revenue Conduit – This is simply an add-on that you will need purchase in addition to connect your Shopify store to InfusionSoft. Yes, two fees. For one service.

gen AI

ChatBots

  • 1. ChatGPT - A dynamic language model-based chatbot that enables users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language.

    2. Perplexity - Using ChatGPT 3.5, Perplexity aims for accuracy by asking many questions and providing sources to all answers. 

    3. Claude – An AI assistant capable of a wide variety of conversational and text processing tasks while maintaining a high degree of reliability and predictability.

    4. Chat Simple – Turn your website into a conversion and pipeline generation machine.

    Image Content

    1. DALL-E – An AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language.

    2. Midjourney - Midjourney is an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species.

    3. BlueWillow - An image generating AI tool designed to help users create logos, graphics, photo-realistic scenes, and more.

    Video Content

    1. Synthesia - Synthesia merges text with realistic visuals, transforming concepts into engaging visual experiences. 

    2. Vidyo.ai - Takes long videos and creates shorter video clips from the longer video ideal for sharing on social media.

    Writing Assistants

    1. Superhuman- a fast email host for busy people that has AI email writing capabilities and can imitate your voice.

    2. Jasper - Jasper is an AI copilot for marketing teams who want better outcomes, not just faster outputs.

    3. Grammarly - Instantly generate clear, compelling writing while maintaining your unique voice.

    Transcribing Text/Meetings

    1. Spinach.io - Spinach.io joins meetings, takes notes, and assigns tasks and next steps to the participating members. Interacts with multiple platforms including Slack & Project Management software.

    2. Otter.ai - Otter.ai can be used to generate a transcription of a meeting in real time or a recorded audio or video file. 

    3. Fireflies - Fireflies.ai helps your team transcribe, summarize, search, and analyze voice conversations.

    Generating Presentations

    1. Tome - Designed to articulate ideas. Generate a presentation, a one-pager, a microsite, and more, starting with any prompt. Tome gives you outlines and options to react to every step of the way, so you can find the best expression of your thoughts.

    2. Typeset - Leave the design tools for the designers. Typeset is for anyone who wants to communicate their idea through visual content – no designer necessary.

    3. Beautiful.AI – It makes your whole approach to presentations easier – starting with design that works faster. Use it to win pitches, reimagine reports, and get better work done every day.

PERSONNEL SUPPORT

PR

TEAM ORGANIZATION & PRODUCTIVITY

VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS & CUSTOMER SERVICE

FREELANCERS

  • Fiverr – This online marketplace is full of freelancers willing to complete all types of tasks starting at $5.

  • UpWork (formerly Elance) – Easily hire developers, graphic artists, virtual assistants and lawyers (yes, lawyers) within their network of freelancers.

packaging & shipping

Drop-shipping & Fulfillment

  • The Printful – Printful is the easiest order fulfillment system you’ll ever use. Their service allows you to print products on demand through their proprietary drop shipping service. Outsource your fulfillment and save time and money.

  • Spreadshirt – Another low cost and effort option to add tangible products to your online store. Once your custom designed products have been added to your shop, your only job is to promote. Spreadshirt will handle payments, order processing, printing, packing shipping and returns. It’s the true definition of passive income.

  • Print Aura –

SHIPPING apps

  • ShipStation – ShipStation integrates with all major shopping cart platforms.

  • ShippingEasy – Process orders, automate shipping, get discounted rates, and optimize your entire shipping process.

PACKAGING DESIGN & SUPPLIES

  • Packlane – Packlane makes it easy for brands to create beautiful custom packaging. Order custom printed boxes online with low minimums, affordable prices, and fast turnaround. We placed a custom order for boxes and we were more than happy with the results.

  • Uline – Unline has thousands of shipping boxes, packing materials and mailing supplies. We order product in bulk to our facility. Most orders will ship the same day and be delivered within 24 hours.

  • Amazon – Order everything from printer ink to PostIt notes. You can order supplies, verify reviews, compare pricing and have my items delivered to our office within 2 days.

  • USPS – The United States Postal Service is our main carrier. Not only do they offer the lowest pricing to ship products around the world, but you can also get free supplies to mail your orders.

WORKING WITH INFLUENCERS

Influencer Marketing Management Platforms

GRIN

Aspire

NinjaOutreach

Traackr

#paid

CreatorIQ

Influencity

Captiv8

Tagger

Klear

Social Cat

Upfluence

Neoreach

Post For Rent

Julius with HYPR

Humanz

Mavrck

Find Your Influence

Heepsy

AFFILIATE Marketing Management Platforms

Upfluence

UpPromote

Trackdesk

Refersion

Post Affiliate Pro

Tapfiliate

LeadDyno

EverFlow

Affiliatly

TUNE

PartnerStack

iDevAffiliate

Rewardful

FlexOffers

ShareASale

CJ Affiliate

Referral Rock

Omnistar Affiliate

Reditus

Cake