10 Tools Every Business Owner Needs

Whether you're an online business owner because you're making digital courses or you are servicing your clients, there are so many different options when it comes to software and tools.

In this post, I want to breakdown for you some of my favorite and highly recommend tools, along with why and how they fit into your business!

Let's dive in!

Canva - This tool is an absolute must, whether you're creating powerpoints, graphics for your blog/podcast/Youtube channel, IG story graphics, this is your one-stop shop to make simple and easy graphics on the fly. I love the templates that they have in their library. Pro-tip, I highly recommend investing in their paid version because then you can save your fonts and brand colors so that you don't have to manually update them every time you use the software.
Toggl - Such an amazing way to track your time whether you're doing it to track your hours to see where you spend your time in your business or for your clients. They have a free desktop/app version that allows you to do quite a bit of tracking. This tool completely necessary for anyone who wants to get better clarity around how they spend their time and how much time they spend working on their clients' work. Tracking your time is crucial in that let's say you price a project for $1,000 assuming it is going to take you 20 hours at $50/hour. As you work on the project you track your time and at the end of the contract, you take the project amount ($1,000) divided by how many hours you worked and you realize that you worked 30. This then drops your effective hourly rate down to $33.33 per hour. Knowing this will help you budget accordingly next time.
Loom - This is such an amazing tool when you need to record a quick video (with or without the camera) to teach someone on your team or even explain something to a client. I use this software all the time (even in some of my online courses) to train students and my virtual assistants. All you have to do is install the plug-in to Google Chrome and anytime you want to record something, you press a button and when you're done, you'll get a link to your video. Pro-Tip, you can use these videos to build your company's training library as your business begins to grow and you start to outsource more tasks. They have a free version that you can use to get started!
GSuite for Business - For the longest time, I didn't understand that you can set up a Google account for your business (aka GSuite). If you have a business, I highly recommend setting up GSuite to making managing your business flawless.
Asana - I am a lover of Asana. I love systems, processes, automation, and outsourcing. I use Asana for everything. It is how I've been able to grow my team over the past year and outsource the things that I don't necessarily love to do and manage my team. You can sign up for Asana, using the free version but be sure to do so with your business email address that way you can unlock all the features on the free version🙂
ConvertKit - I love ConvertKit. I use to use Mailchimp but when I found ConvertKit, I quickly migrated to the platform. The user experience is way more simple and easy to navigate. You can get a free trial with ConvertKit by clicking here.
LastPass - If you've ever been annoyed by having to remember all of your different username logins and passwords for your different accounts....then you MUST get LastPass. It stores all of your logins and passwords in one place, making it super easy and simple every time you log in to one of your accounts. Bonus! If you want to share your login with someone, you can do so without them seeing the actual password. I use this software with my virtual assistants. I can easily share the login information with them without telling them the exact password, plus I can remove their access at any time.
Podia - For all things paid digital downloads, courses, ebooks, memberships, I always tell my students, Podia. Their customer service is unlike anything I've ever experienced before and their team is extremely friendly and helpful. I love their user experience too. I've been using Podia for over two years and love it. You can get a free trial by clicking here.
Slack - For the longest time, I resisted getting myself (and my team) on Slack. Mainly because it was new software and something new to get into the habit of but now we LOVE it. It helps reduce the back and forth emails and allows me to quickly message them. You can easily integrate their free version into your business.
Upwork - As your business begins to grow it'll be important for you to start looking at ways and areas that you can replace yourself. For example, if you're creating content, producing that content and scheduling that content, you're probably spending way too much time then you need to. Upwork is the perfect place to find and source talent to help you complete your work so that you can spend more time working on your business, instead of always in it.