Hey there, my friend, welcome to episode 306 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thanks for leading me your ears right now – I know you have lots of other things you could be doing or listening to – so I appreciate you.

This week on the podcast, I’m sharing 11 Business Tools I use either daily, many times daily or at least many times a week.  Whenever I do talks or webinars or mentoring sessions, “what do you use for xyz”, is so often the questions I get asked. Now these 11 tools are what I use – other people will tell you what they use and what they love and it might be different to what I use and love – and that’s okay, okay?

But before I share my 11 unmistakeably wonderful tools, did you get a chance to listen to my chat with Jackson Millan last week? Jackson is The Wealth Mentor and he gave so many pieces of gold in our conversation about money and perhaps your relationship with money. If you haven’t listened to that episode, tune back into it after listening to it today. Can you find it at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/305

I wanted to give a shoutout to my LinkedIn Retreat – there are still some spaces to come along to that if upping your LinkedIn game is on your list – you can find all the details on my website – www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au and just click the Retreat button in the top menu.

And I also have ONE SPOT left for mentoring for the next 6 months – is that spot going to be yours?

If the times right for you to invest, get in touch via your favourite social media platform or email jenn@jenndonovan.com.au or of course you can book an appointment through my website – www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au

Okay, let’s get into the tools I use – actually, before I do that, disclaimer – I have links in this podcast – in the show notes at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/306 and some of them are affiliate links. So, some of them will give you exclusive discounts if you use them (YAY, that’s gotta be good) and some of them will do that and also give me a little reward to. And although I may or may not get a little reward, rest assured, I am only recommending them because I use and love them, not because I want to make money off them! Clear? Perfect. Let’s GO!

1. Flodesk. Flodesk is my favourite choice for an email marketing platform. I have been with Flodesk for about 6 or so years – since it started really. I have always enjoyed their templates, love that no matter how big your list is, it’s the same price and it’s deliverability is outstanding (meaning I get into people’s inboxes and not their spam folders or even halted at the gate like some programs. Over time Flodesk has definitely moved more into the e-comm space, but for me it still one thousand percent works. Click here to find out more: https://flodesk.com/c/LOVEJENN (I think I might run a webinar on this program, to showcase it because I think it’s hard to change email providers once you’re in unless you get ask questions! Oh and talking about questions, Flodesk has the BEST insider Facebook group where you can ask questions of not only the community of flodeskers but also the developers and staff too. It’s brill!
2. Zoom. I use Zoom almost every day. Usually, my days have at least 2 or 3, sometimes 4 or 5 mentoring sessions with clients. So, zoom is my constant. I break into a cold sweat when people want me to use Teams or Google Meet – yikes! I use it to also record my podcast interviews, run webinars, record course videos and sometimes just use it to record me talking for some content or a video to send to a client or a friend. It’s very very handy! Link to get zoom: https://zoom.us/
3. Talking about zoom, Amy from Bush Biz Boost introduced me to Fathom – the notetaker app I have installed on my zoom which takes notes for me! This is very very handy! Every time I do a mentoring call, I send through the notes of our conversation. I used to do this by hand, now AI does it for me and it is amazingly accurate! Want to know more? Click here: https://fathom.video/invite/Ks4XLw Side note: if you use zoom, click the apps section and see all the other wonderful apps you can use. I’ve been people have reactions and have timers – all sorts of things that are all zoom apps. The app world in zoom is your playground! Go and check them out. Another side note – some are paid and some are free – just be aware of that!
4. Keeping on the video theme, Vimeo is my next recommendation. Vimeo is like YouTube. In fact I call it professional YouTube! This is where I store all my big video content. Webinar recordings, my course recordings, professionally shot videos – all my videos. The videos you see on my website or in my emails, they are hosted on Vimeo. Two reasons why I don’t host on YouTube (1) because you can’t control what video follows your video – this gives me the irks and (2) security – some videos I want to make sure they can ONLY be viewed by people with links. Learn more about vimeo here: www.vimeo.com and if you’re keen, get 25% off by going here and filling in the form: https://share.vimeo.com/user_menu
5. Calendly – Calendly is my calendar booking service. Client book via this calendar, people who want to come on my podcast- basically anyone who wants time with me (other than those who I speak to directly!), book via calendly. It’s integrated into my website, I can take payments via Stripe and Paypal through Calendly (although often don’t but there’s one or two appointments I have that people can) and of course it’s integrated with my Google calendar so there’s no cross overs or double up appointments. Calendly has a free version and paid starts from $10 a month – USD of course! https://calendly.com/
6. Manychat- ManyChat is a software that integrates with platforms like Instagram and Facebook to set up chat funnels and automations. It has been a game-changer for me in connecting my content to tangible results. I can engage with my audience, gather insights, and even collect email addresses while I sleep. It saves the whole link in bio fiasco! Link: https://manychat.partnerlinks.io/ikg5hj8jfj4a
7. Canva – Y’all might think everyone has heard of or uses Canva, but I am always surprised who I come across who thinks I am a God for showing them Canva! Canva is a graphic design platform that provides tools for creating social media graphics, presentations, promotional merchandise and websites. If you don’t use it or you have it but don’t really get how to use it – then it’s time for you to watch some video tutorials either in Canva or via YouTube because that’s exactly what I did about 9 or 10 years ago when I was just starting out with Canva. They have a free version and a paid version but I think you should totally pay for it – it’s a business expense and you are a business and it WILL help you save money and time, so it’s totally worth it. Link: https://www.canva.com/
8. ChatGPT – Ai technology that is ChatGPT. An AI program I use daily and I am currently working on something BIG using it – more to come about that a little bit later on – I promise you won’t miss it! But I use ChaptGPT daily. I use it for client work, I use it for answering questions, suggesting ideas, I use it like my business partner, like a VA – so so many uses. I cannot encourage you enough to start experimenting with ChatGPT. I pay for it and I think it is totally worth it. The paid version just gives you a much better experience and therefore you are more likely to keep experimenting and using because you are having a great experience. Link: https://openai.com/chatgpt/
9. Xero – Xero is my accounting software and although it’s bat crap boring it is a business tool I cannot live without. I love that, once I had it set up and yes I paid for it to be professionally set up, it is so freaking simple to carry on business knowing my finances are easy to keep up to date and easy to see where they money is going and coming from – which is important! Xero has a deal of 90% off for 6 months if you sign up before 31^st July – so be quick! The link is https://www.xero.com/au/pricing-plans/ – it’s not an affiliate link and I’m a little pissed that new customers get the good deals and existing customers get bugger all – but that’s a different story altogether!
10. Opus Clip – This is my newest AI love – it’s for video and basically how I use it is that I upload my videos and then it then cuts them into smaller videos. For example, if I have a recording of me speaking for 1 hour, I could get Opus Clip to chop it into 30 second videos for social media – or something like that! If video is important to your content strategy and can I just politely express that it should be (!), and if you have lots of video footage but not sure how to use it or how you can repurpose it – you definitely need this program (or something very similar!). Link: https://www.opus.pro/?via=db3eba – I do have an affiliate link for this one and they have some great deals – plus a great free program to trial and see if it works for you (and get some awesome free content from your free trial!).
11. Lead Pages – I have been using lead pages for about 10 years or so – on and off. I use it to produce web pages super quickly and make sure they are conversional pages – backed by data. I do like to use as many webpages on my website as possible, but sometimes the design choice and my limited creative ability means that lead pages is the way to go! I can literally have a webpage up in less than 10 minutes, gathering data, and/or selling products! https://try.leadpages.com/r3b8qw46y0pt Lead pages is probably one of the more expensive pieces of software I pay for – I think it’s about $350 USD a year – maybe?!?! So that’s about $500 or so Aussie. But honestly, if I had to pay for a graphic designer and website designer every time I needed a new webpage or landing page – I would pay that amount in the first attempt!

Honestly, as I am recording this podcast, I am thinking about all the other pieces of software that I use weekly if not daily – so I think I will need to do a part 2 of this podcast at some point!

I would also like to know which ones you use and cannot live without. Make sure you share them with us either via DM on a social platform or email me or come into my Like Minded Facebook Group and tell me and the whole community in there!

Otherwise, that’s it for this week.

In summary, here’s all the software’s and their links, just to make it easier when you come to the shownotes to check them all out: (show notes are at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/306 )

1. Flodesk. https://flodesk.com/c/LOVEJENN
2. Zoom https://zoom.us/
3. Fathom https://fathom.video/invite/Ks4XLw
4. Vimeo www.vimeo.com and if you’re keen, get 25% off by going here and filling in the form: https://share.vimeo.com/user_menu
5. Calendly https://calendly.com/
6. Manychat https://manychat.partnerlinks.io/ikg5hj8jfj4a
7. Canva https://www.canva.com/
8. ChatGPT https://openai.com/chatgpt/
9. Xero https://www.xero.com/au/pricing-plans/
10. Opus Clip https://www.opus.pro/?via=db3eba
11. Lead Pages https://try.leadpages.com/r3b8qw46y0pt

If you loved this episode and found it valuable, please take 30 seconds out of your day to leave me a rating and review if you want where you are listening. And do you have a friend who might like to listen in too? Can I ask a favour, and have you share this episode with them? I’d love that and appreciate it SO much.

Again, I’d love you to join in the community in the Like Minded Business Owners Facebook group. You can join the group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/LikeMindedBusinessOwners

See you next week on the podcast for episode 307

But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook, and my fav LinkedIn.

But whatever you do,

…….. remember small business peep, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!