My 15 Favorite Tools I Use to Run My Online Business

Call me a geek, but I love a cool app, extension, tool or strategy to help me better run my business.

With so many choices it’s often hard to know which are the best to use. Having researched, tested and worked with many over the last seven years, I’ve come to rely on the following to run my business. Below I’m sharing the tools and how I use them to give you a better idea of how you can use them in your online business as well.

In no particular order, here we go…

1. Canva – I use for creating graphics and images for blog posts and social media. I also use it to create PDFs and I’ve even created a few Speaker One Sheets. It’s easy to use and has a free version. I prefer the upgraded version where I’ve been able to integrate my brand colors.
2. Dropbox – Dropbox can be used for many things, I love storing my photos and images so they’re easy to find. Make sure if you’re using it to create folders for the various projects or work that you’re storing there. This is a great tool for your computer and also helpful to have on your phone so you can upload photos or download them and use other phone apps to modify them before using them on social media.
3. Slack – I have absolutely fallen in love with this tool. I use it to communicate with separate team members as well as a single channel for the entire team. There are many ways to use it, but one of the main benefits is so that you don’t have to use your email allowing for far less clutter in your inbox. I like that I can use it on my computer and it also has an app for my phone.
4. Wunderlist – I have been all over the place with productivity and recently discovered through a client why that’s the case. Bottom line, we need to find productivity tools that work for us. I use this app both on my computer and my phone to keep track of tasks. This along with the Passion Planner are my go to productivity tools.
5. LastPass– Always struggling to figure out your passwords? There’s a much easier way, this app allows you to keep track of everything in one place. It’s a must in my book.
6. Quickbooks– Expenses and income are a part of doing business. Tracking them doesn’t have to be a challenge. Make sure you have a tool to track them. Quickbooks is a great way to do it.
7. Planoly – using Instagram for your business? Having a nice looking feed and grid will matter. Planoly helps you look at your photos on Instagram before you post them. This way you can see what looks good and what needs to be moved around to make it look even better. I have the app on my phone and love it.
8. VSCO – this is a simple tool to add to your phone so that you can edit your photos before you post them. Often times I’ll make minor adjustments to my images, then upload them into Planoly and see how they look or upload them directly to Instagram or Facebook for posting.
9. Google Drive – I’m a big fan of Google drive. It keeps organizing everything much easier. There’s a variety of ways you can use it, but one of my favorites is to create questionnaires for new clients, polls and pre and post event surveys. There are so many things you can do with it from creating folders for your projects to organizing your work (marketing, blog posts, etc.). Once you start you’ll likely find new ways to stay organized. Plus, the benefit is if you have the app on your phone you can access your information everywhere.
10. Evernote – this tool has been around for quite some time and there are plenty of people who teach you how to use it and use it efficiently. I like to use it to capture thoughts and write out processes. But one of my favorite things is to be able to use the app on my phone to record thoughts. Sometimes I’ll have blog post ideas or projects I’m working on and I’ll simply pull up the app, hit the record button and speak my thoughts.
11. LeadPages* – I use this for my free gifts, webinars and some short sales pages. It’s simple to use and allows you to create easy ways to capture leads and sales. Plus, they’ve got plenty of templates to work off of so you don’t have to spend time figuring it out (it’s great if you’re a non-techie like me).
12. Ontraport – this has been my email marketing service and online shopping cart for several years. I opted for it because I was wanting an easy to manage, comprehensive system. I didn’t start with this system, but once my business started regenerating more revenue online, I knew I needed something this robust.
13. Recurpost – this is a tool I’ve been using for a little while. It’s been helpful with prescheduling some of my content on social media. I’ve got the free version and like it very much.
14. AcuityScheduling* – this is a tool I cannot live without. I’ve been with Acuity for a few years now and use it to schedule all of my client appointments and Discovery Calls. It’s great for sending reminders and allows clients to easily schedule or reschedule appointments. It’s by far my favorite of all scheduling apps.
15. Zoom– Little did I know that I’d have this app open on my computer all day every day. I love using to for Discovery Calls (because the face to face first connection is quite powerful), my Q&A Calls with my Revenue Makers Mastermind members and all of my Virtual VIP Retreats. I have the meeting version, but you can also get the webinar version if you’re doing webinars as well. I think I’m going to have to be a lifetime customer!

Okay, that about sums up the back end of my business. I hope you found this helpful. Now I would LOVE to hear from you. What are your must have apps, extensions and tools that help you run your business? Let me know in the comments below! And if you’re wondering how you can do a better job of monetizing and growing your business, make sure to click here connect. I’d be happy to see where you can make some improvements in your business!

*Please note that these two services are affiliate links and I may receive some compensation should you choose to purchase through my link.