Have you ever wondered what the secret is behind running a successful online business and being a mum at the same time?
Well there are lots of secrets, but one of the biggest is working smarter not harder. We’ve probably all heard that saying before but just because it is overused doesn’t mean it is any less effective. In order to scale a business we need time. But, of course so does our family.
So the key here is to work out how to save more time and make more time so we are operating at beyond 24 hours in a day.
One of the ways we can save time in our business is by leveraging off some really smart tools and resources to automate some of that manual labour we are expending.
These are the best online business tools that we love and recommend here at Business Jump:
1. Active Campaign
All my emails funnel through Active Campaign. It allows me to create sequences and funnels that get sent out to cold leads, warm leads and clients in the Business Jump family. The emails to my cold and warm audience are designed to educate and qualify them before my time is required to step in. It usually means before I jump on a call with someone they already have a really good idea about Business Jump, our pricing and what we offer and also, who I am so that we can chat about the stuff that really matters on the phone (which is my favourite part of what I do) In addition, I have also created an 18 email on-boarding sequence for new clients to share my best tips, tricks and advice about running an online business to prepare them for the online world and further educate them about what to expect with working with us. There is also an exit sequence for when we have completed the job with the same goal as the onboarding sequence and additional ‘follow up’ funnels to recapture potential clients that might not have signed up on the first encounter.
AC starts at $9 per month. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/bjcoactivecampaign
2. Mailtrack
An e-mail tracking and scheduling program used by some of the biggest companies on the world. Automate e-mails and flag follow ups to improve productivity and efficiency. I won’t lie, I love a little email stalk to see who has and hasn’t opened my emails.
3. Zapier
Zapier allows you to connect different software apps together so they can talk to each other. For example when we have a new client pays a deposit, Zapier allows Paypal to talk to Active Campaign which triggers the onboarding emails, and emails to the team and then talks to Asana which creates a new client project, which then talks to Freshbooks to add the new client into my accounting software which then talks to Google Drive which creates a new client folder. Approx 20 minutes of manual time per client all done automatically for zero amount of my time.
4. Calendly
Another one that saves me time. Instead of going back and forth trying to find a suitable time with someone to have a phone call with them, there is a Calendly link in my emails which people can use to go and make a time straight away. Approx a month I think. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/bjcocalendly
5. Google Drive
We LOVE Google Drive. It helps keep Business Jump on top of files, websites and everything in between. With our team spread across Australia, we don’t have access to each others personal desk space, so our desks are in Drive. We keep the content for each business website we create in it’s own folder and then share the folder with the people who need access to it and then share it with the client when the reigns are ready to be handed over. You can access it on your desktop or mobile device and it seamlessly integrates and automatically updates, so no worries if you accidentally forget to hit save!
6. Asana
Yep, we are loving Asana as well. Similar to the above, with our team being spread far and wide, we needed a way to communicate without Facebook messaging every other minute. Think of Asana as one big to do list that everyone in your team can see. You can assign certain tasks to individuals and then you will be notified when they are done. You can even add notes and conversations onto tasks or projects so communicating is made super easy and transparent.
7. Grammarly
If you haven’t yet heard of Grammarly, have we got a new time saving tool for you! How many minutes or hours do you spend sitting there proof-reading your work only to miss simple grammatical errors anyway. Well, what if I was to tell you that Grammarly does it all for you! Yep, it will fix your grammar, add punctuation marks and even offer you better words to replace your existing ones. If you are writing blogs and eBooks, you might want to consider adding this to your repertoire. And it is free!
8. Evernote
Are you one of those people who has paper notes and post it notes all over your computer screen? Guilty here! Well, when they say there is an app for everything, there really is. Evernote is, well an app to store your notes. Whether they be written, drawn or to do lists, Evernote stores them all for you and integrates with all of your devices, so you will always have your notes wherever you go!
9. Woocommerce Subscriptions
For those with serviced based businesses or some varying type of business where you don’t already have an inbuilt recurring paying option, Woocommerce Subscriptions is awesome and allows you to setup automatic payments. This was a game-changer for my business and instead of having to manually follow up payments from clients I now just send them a link and it is all automated through this plugin, Paypal and Stripe.
